The Eleanor Roosevelt Papers, Digital Edition > My Day
My Day by Eleanor Roosevelt

[This column has emendations. View original version]

      

I was reading this morning, the galley proof of the first few chapters of a book called "The Woman Speaker," by Eudora Ramsay Richardson, sent me by Mrs. Geline Bowman, Honorary President of the National Professional and Business Women's Clubs. This book which will, I hope before long be published so that women in general can obtain it, brought to my mind certain things we need to think about at present.

We have been passing laws and taking action in order to meet an emergency and as usually happens in such cases, very few of us have sat down and figured out whether we want to keep on indefinitely with these emergency measures, or whether we want to work toward more final results.

Take the concrete problem of unemployment, which as a by-product has produced discrimination against women, a tendency which we have seen in other nations grow to its natural climax in restricting women in all the fields which they have labored for years to enter. In Germany, I understand, highly trained scientific women are told their minds are of no use to their country, only their ability to bear children and to run a house economically and efficiently is of any real value.

We feel like saying "It can't happen here," but unless we face the fact that this is a by-product of the great question now before us, we may wake up to find that we have gone the way of other nations who were unable to solve this situation.

Has every human who desires it the right to work?

Should not the best brains of our country work on this problem?

There are three fundamentals for human happiness—work which will produce at least a minimum of material security; love and faith. These things must be made possible for all human beings, men and women alike.

E.R.


Names and Terms Mentioned or Referenced

Persons
  • Bowman, Geline MacDonald, 1889-1946 [ index ]
         American vusiness executive and civic leader
         [ SNAC ]
  • Richardson, Eudora Ramsay, 1892-1973 [ index ]
         American writer and educator
         [ LC | VIAF | SNAC | Other source ]
Organizations
  • National Federation of Business and Professional Women's Clubs [ index ]
         [ LC | VIAF | SNAC | FAST ]


About this document

My Day by Eleanor Roosevelt, January 31, 1936

Roosevelt, Eleanor, 1884-1962
[ ERPP bio | LC | VIAF | WorldCat | DPLA | Wikidata | SNAC ]

Digital edition created by The Eleanor Roosevelt Papers Project The George Washington University 312 Academic Building 2100 Foxhall Road, NW Washington, DC 20007

  • Brick, Christopher (Editor)
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  • Regenhardt, Christy (Associate Editor)
    [ ISNI ]
  • Black, Allida M. (Editor)
    [ VIAF | ISNI ]
  • Binker, Mary Jo (Associate Editor)
    [ VIAF | ORCID ]
  • Alhambra, Christopher C. (Electronic Text Editor)
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Digital edition published 2008, 2017 by
The Eleanor Roosevelt Papers Project

Available under licence from the Estate of Anna Eleanor Roosevelt.

Published with permission from the Estate of Anna Eleanor Roosevelt.

MEP edition publlished on June 30, 2008.

TEI-P5 edition published on April 28, 2017.

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Transcription created from a photocopy of a draft version of a My Day column instance archived at the Franklin D. Roosevelt Library. My Day column draft dated January 30, 1936, FDR Library, Hyde Park, NY
TMsd, 30 January 1936, AERP, FDRL