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

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NEW YORK, March 31—This has been a slightly busy day. I started out for a meeting with a group of women this morning and spent nearly two hours with them. I took my daughter, two friends, Mrs. June Hamilton Rhodes and Miss Jane Brett, to lunch at the Biltmore Hotel. After that, my daughter and I did a little hurried shopping.

I got back to pick up Mrs. Scheider at the Democratic State Committee office, and found that an old friend of mine had sent three men with a plea that I see them. They turned out to be sharecroppers, one white and one colored man from Arkansas, and a white man from Oklahoma. They told a pitiful tale about the sharecroppers who had been evicted, or who had been obliged to leave their land because they could not make a living.

They were interesting types. One of them seemed almost like the traveling parson of my youth, who went from little church to little church preaching the gospel and living on anything which the neighbors would give him. The sharecropper talked of the Lord but his mind was also on material things which the Lord was not supplying—material things for others however, for it was quite evident that he had had few of the good things of life himself. Of course, as I knew little or nothing about their conditions, I had to turn them over to people who could look into their case.

From there Mrs. Scheider and I went to the Henry Street Settlement. I thought I was being economical by taking the subway, but it landed us quite a way from Grand Street and we could not get a taxi until we had walked several blocks, so I was late.

I was there at the invitation of a student group, and most of the audience were comparatively young people. They had three young speakers followed by Mr. Mark McCloskey, New York City Regional Director of the National Youth Administration, and myself. Questions were asked afterwards.

I was presented with a lovely little statue done by James Wolfe of the Henry Street pottery class. I shall treasure it as a memento of two and a half very interesting hours with the young people of the lower East Side of New York City.

E.R.


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About this document

My Day by Eleanor Roosevelt, April 1, 1936

Roosevelt, Eleanor, 1884-1962
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Digital edition created by The Eleanor Roosevelt Papers Project The George Washington University 312 Academic Building 2100 Foxhall Road, NW Washington, DC 20007

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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 UFS wire copy of a My Day column instance archived at the Franklin D. Roosevelt Library.
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