A Study Guide for Blanche Weisen Cook's "Eleanor Roosevelt, Volume one 1884-1933"

By Gale and Cengage

A Study Guide for Blanche Weisen Cook's "Eleanor Roosevelt, Volume one 1884-1933," excerpted from Gale's acclaimed Nonfiction Classics for Students. This concise study guide includes plot summary; character analysis; author biography; study questions; historical context; suggestions for further reading; and much more. For any literature project, trust Nonfiction Classics for Students for all of your research needs.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Cengage Learning - Gale
• Release date: Sep 20, 2016
• ISBN: 9781535822503

Book preview

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Eleanor Roosevelt, Volume One, 1884-1933

Blanche Wiesen Cook

1992

Introduction

Blanche Wiesen Cook's Eleanor Roosevelt, Volume One, 1884-1933 is the first of a three-volume biography that reexamines the life and work of Eleanor Roosevelt. When published by Viking in 1992, it quickly became a bestseller. It was also controversial.

The biography is written from a feminist perspective, and it presents Roosevelt as a role model for women today. Cook explains that Roosevelt was unwilling to live her life within the strict limits imposed by a male-dominated society. As a woman of wealth and privilege, married to a rising politician, Roosevelt would normally have been expected to confine herself to managing the household, raising the children, perhaps engaging in some worthy charitable work, and supporting her husband's career. But Eleanor Roosevelt insisted on developing a more independent life. She forged a new identity for herself by engaging in meaningful political activity at a time when women had just received the right to vote. Cook sees Roosevelt as a committed progressive who championed an agenda of social reform and who attained genuine political power in her own right.

The controversial aspect of the biography mostly concerned Cook's argument that when Eleanor Roosevelt was married and in her forties, she had an affair with her bodyguard, Earl Miller, and also had an erotic relationship with a female reporter, Lorena Hickok. Previous biographers have been far more cautious in assessing both of these friendships. Cook argues her case persuasively from the available evidence, but not everyone has been convinced of the truth of her conclusions.

Author Biography

Blanche Wiesen Cook was born on April 20, 1941, in New York, New York, the daughter of David Theodore and Sadonia (Ecker) Wiesen. Cook graduated from Hunter College with a B.A. in 1962; she then received an M.A. from Johns Hopkins University in 1964 and a Ph.D. in history from the same university in 1970.

Cook decided to make her career as a teacher and historian. She was an instructor of history at Stern College for Women, Yeshiva University, New York, from 1964 to 1967. Since 1968, Cook has been a professor of history at John Jay College and the Graduate Center, City University of New York. She also teaches women's studies.

Cook enjoys a distinguished career as a historian. She has contributed many articles on history to scholarly journals, and she was the senior editor for the 360-volume Garland Library on War and Peace (1970-1980) and the Jewish Women's Encyclopedia (1997). She was coeditor of and contributor to Past—Imperfect: Alternative Essays in American History (Knopf, 1973), and she is the author of four books: Crystal Eastman on Women and Revolution (Oxford