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ganda machine had planned, Rosie the Riveter left the factory when the war
ended and returned home to once more perform her duties as wife and moth-
er.
While Rosie and her sisters in the factories might have been pushed aside,
there was one woman who both symbolically and in reality stood above all
others in the World War II era and was a huge force for women’s rights in
that era—ER, Eleanor Roosevelt, FDR’s wife and America’s First Lady. Two days
after the March 4th, 1933 inauguration, it became clear that ER was unlike
any previous first lady. On March 6th, she held the first ever news conference
by a first lady; never had a president’s wife talked so freely with the press. Lou
Henry Hoover, for example, held only one interview in the four years her
husband was in office. Eleanor’s news conference was even more notable, and
provocative, because she only allowed female reporters to participate. That
meeting was the first of what would be called the “Red Room Sessions,”
where ER met with female reporters to discuss political issues such as labor
reform, sweatshops, education reform, low-cost housing, equal pay for equal
work, minimum wages, child care for working mothers, and old age pen-
sions—issues far more “liberal” than those on which her husband was work-
ing. Political reporter Ruby Black remarked, “previously, a President’s wife
acted as if she didn’t know that a political party existed.” Surely, ER knew
the New Deal existed and was going to do what she could to have an impact
on it.
From the onset of the FDR administration, it was clear that Eleanor would
play a prominent role as an openly political first lady and advocate for racial
and ethnic minorities, women, and children. When foreign crisis intensified,
Mrs. Roosevelt’s proclivity to engage in political and social matters seemed to
also increase. During World War II, a war in which her four sons were active
servicemen, her public role deepened. The First Lady openly spoke out
against fascism, challenged her husband’s wartime policies, acted as a Red
Cross representative, advocated more prominent roles for African Americans
and women in wartime preparedness, and visited troops in England and the
South Pacific. Eleanor’s strong advocacy for domestic democracy and equal-
ity at home informed her actions during World War II, and made her an
important symbol as an activist first lady, one often invoked by later first ladies
like Hillary Clinton, Laura Bush, and Michelle Obama.