Casting her own shadow : Eleanor Roosevelt and the shaping of Postwar liberalism / Allida M. Black.

Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

Black shows how Eleanor Roosevelt, after being freed from the constraints imposed by her role in the White House, eagerly expanded her career and unabashedly challenged both the Democratic party and American liberals to practice what they preach.

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Publishers Weekly Review

In contrast to Blanche Cook's Eleanor Roosevelt (LJ 2/15/92) and Doris Kearns Goodwin's No Ordinary Time (LJ 9/15/94), which emphasize Eleanor Roosevelt's personality and social circumstances, this concise study argues that she was the most influential liberal powerbroker of the post-World War II era. Black (history, George Washington Univ.) does not attempt to flesh out Roosevelt's strong personality, which won the admiration of the public but angered the KKK and other extremist groups; instead, she focuses on Roosevelt's political career. Black is at her best while chronicling her subject's tenacious support for the civil rights of African Americans and the civil liberties of those accused of Communist leanings. Roosevelt, according to Black, redefined the role of First Lady and, more than any contemporary politician, promoted the liberal agenda‘affordable housing, public education, and affirmative action‘under attack today. Recommended for women's studies collections.‘Karl Helicher, Upper Merion Twp. Lib., King of Prussia, Pa. (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

CHOICE Review

Eleanor Roosevelt spent the years before her husband's presidency overcoming her innate shyness and feelings of inferiority, and learning how to use her abilities to support social programs in which she developed interests. She continued to expand her influence during her years as first lady, sometimes prodding her husband to take actions that she thought were necessary but that he deemed politically unwise. Black's book focuses on the post-White House years of her life, when she became an imposing presence in American politics in her own right. In many ways, Eleanor Roosevelt became the conscience of the Democratic party and the country, pleading for fair wages and diversity, working against segregation, racial violence, McCarthyism, and reactionary forces, and also convincing timid Democrats to join in her crusades. Black studied Roosevelt from the perspective of political history, and not pure biography. The resulting blend is a useful portrait of a woman who became a successful liberal power broker. Using numerous primary and secondary sources, Black carefully recounts the intricacies of postwar liberalism without losing sight of Mrs. Roosevelt's enormous contributions to the development of that creed. Upper-division undergraduates and above. J. P. Sanson Louisiana State University at Alexandria

Booklist Review

Anna Eleanor Roosevelt remains, 33 years after her death, a fascinating, difficult-to-categorize American icon. In Casting Her Own Shadow readers are given a portrait of ER as political insider. Black, a historian at Pennsylvania State University and George Washington University, traces ER's political work before 1933 and in the White House years as a prelude to this study of her efforts--from 1945 until her death in 1962--to challenge Americans (particularly Democrats) to live up to U.S. ideals on full employment, civil rights, and civil liberties. A political realist, ER "defined the liberal agenda that would emerge in the decade after her death and that is so seriously attacked today" (e.g., public housing, national health care, affirmative action, and the United Nations). Black sketches changes in ER's positions on these issues and the consistency of her vision of an inclusive democracy her critics (and most current political "leaders" ) either ignored or opposed. That vision is masterfully captured in What I Hope to Leave Behind, Black's collection of 126 of ER's essays that cover key issues she addressed. Chronological arrangement in the book's nine sections--Reflections and Personal Testimony, Democracy and the General Welfare, Civil Rights and the Problems of Black America, Women and the World Around Them, Education and Problems Confronting Youth, Political and Policy Analysis, This Troubled World, Issues of War and Peace, the U.N. and Human Rights--allows readers to trace the development of ER's positions. Although style and diction sometimes reveal the essays' vintage, Eleanor Roosevelt's analysis and ideas are remarkably modern. Given current interest, libraries should find this book in high demand. --Mary Carroll

Kirkus Book Review

Eleanor Roosevelt receives her due as a leading influence on recent American liberal thought. Roosevelt spent much of her life laboring in the shadow of her husband, president of the US for an unprecedented 13 years. In the 17 years remaining to her after his death, when she no longer had to defer to his political requirements, Roosevelt reveled in developing what Black (History/George Washington Univ.) calls ""the expertise necessary to build a legacy of her own."" Black ably emphasizes the key points of that legacy, among them an enduring commitment to civil rights and women's issues, which Roosevelt had been pressing since the 1920s. Long a political activist and writer--her opinion pieces and journalism ran in such venues as Redbook, the New York Times, and the North American Review--Roosevelt had early on established a reputation of her own; Black makes the interesting claim that, thanks to her writing, Roosevelt was better known than her husband when he entered national politics, and she shows how Roosevelt maintained her own identity even as her husband's advisors urged her to keep a lower profile. Black's book is weakened somewhat by its organization, which focuses on themes at the expense of chronological development, but it is nonetheless a thoughtful study in Roosevelt's sophisticated political ideas, including her embracing definition of multicultural democracy well before such an idea became current. Black covers Roosevelt's work in dismantling racism, promoting full employment and worker's rights, and combating the excesses of the Red Scare era. She also quotes widely from Roosevelt's written work, reminding readers of her subject's commonsensical and good-humored approach to the issues of the day. In Black's useful account, Roosevelt resembles no one so much as Hillary Clinton, whose recent work as a politician and newspaper columnist recapitulates Roosevelt's own career--and who, as a political wife, has been similarly reviled and similarly admired for holding ideas of her own. Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.