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

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New York City, Tuesday—There is a school in Fort Wayne, Ind., where they have formed a society which they call the "SIRS." It stands for Sisters International Radio Society, and the executive secretary, Miss Jane Kettler, has written me two letters. I hope this radio school has given its pupils excellent training in radio, but whether it has or not, it certainly has given them enthusiasm and a vision of what lies before them in the way of opportunity after their basic training.

They tell me that many of them are studying the International Code in preparation for joining the WAACS and WAVES; that others are preparing to go into communications under the Civil Service Requirements. Others have been able to go into the local electrical manufacturing plant and gain promotions and feel great satisfaction because they are participating in a tangible way in the war effort.

I know that in many of the NYA projects, more and more girls are being trained in the fundamentals of radio work. I imagine that there are many industries also conducting schools for various occupations growing out of a knowledge of some kind of radio work.

I feel that girls and women who go into work now which has an opportunity for future development along new lines, are very wise. The men coming home have been promised that their jobs would be held for them, and without any question they should be. Therefore, I think women are wise to learn new trades, with a realization that, as population increases, we shall need not only more of the old goods, but we shall need more workers for new developments.

It is true that many inventions will curtail the need for man-power. We must also count on labor saving devices, because we shall want more goods at cheaper prices, and labor is usually the greatest cost. Therefore, new inventions are very important, since they are the surest way of increasing our need for labor.

I am interested to find that even among some of my own contemporaries, there is a growing feeling that the younger generation will come through this war with more vision, knowledge and imagination about the future than was the case with the men and women who were young after the last war. Therefore, we may rely on their pushing new ideas and accepting and developing them.

E.R.

(COPYRIGHT, 1943, BY UNITED FEATURE SYNDICATE, INC.)


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About this document

My Day by Eleanor Roosevelt, January 20, 1943

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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Digital edition published 2008, 2017 by
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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 UFS wire copy of a My Day column instance archived at the Franklin D. Roosevelt Library.
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