Unsung History25 Maalis 2024

Eleanor Roosevelt's Visit to the Pacific Theatre during World War II

In August 1943, First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt set off in secrecy from San Francisco on a military transport plane, flying across the Pacific Ocean. It wasn’t until she showed up in New Zealand 10 days later that the public learned about her trip, a mission to the frontlines of the Pacific Theater in World War II to serve as "the President's eyes, ears and legs." Eleanor returned to New York five weeks and nearly 26,000 miles later, having seen an estimated 400,000 troops on her trip and producing a detailed report on American Red Cross activities in the Southwest Pacific for Norman Davis, Chairman of the American Red Cross.

Joining me in this episode is journalist Shannon McKenna Schmidt, author of The First Lady of World War II: Eleanor Roosevelt's Daring Journey to the Frontlines and Back.

Our theme song is Frogs Legs Rag, composed by James Scott and performed by Kevin MacLeod, licensed under Creative Commons. The mid-episode audio is from the December 7, 1941, episode of Over Our Coffee Cups, a weekly 15-minute radio show hosted by Eleanor Roosevelt on the NBC Blue network; in 1942, these recordings were donated to the Library of Congress as a gift from the sponsor, the Pan-American Coffee Bureau; the audio clip can be accessed on the C-SPAN website. The episode image is “Eleanor Roosevelt, General Harmon, and Admiral Halsey in New Caledonia,” taken on September 16, 1943; the image is in the public domain and is available via the National Archives, NAID: 195974.

Additional Sources:

“This Is What Eleanor Roosevelt Said to America’s Women on the Day of Pearl Harbor,” by Lily Rothman, Time Magazine, Originally published December 7, 2016, and updated on December 6, 2018.
“ER and the Office of Civilian Defense,” Eleanor Roosevelt Papers Project.
“In the South Pacific War Zone (1943),” Eleanor Roosevelt Papers Project.
“Eleanor Roosevelt: American Ambassador to the South Pacific,” by Glenn Barnett, Warfare History Network, July 2006.
“A First Lady on the Front Lines,” by Paul M Sparrow, Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library and Museum, August 26, 2016.
“Eleanor Roosevelt and World War II,” National Park Service.
“Eleanor Roosevelt: South Pacific Visit [video],” clip from The Roosevelts by Ken Burns, September 13, 2014.

Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

Tämä jakso on lisätty Podme-palveluun avoimen RSS-syötteen kautta eikä se ole Podmen omaa tuotantoa. Siksi jakso saattaa sisältää mainontaa.

Jaksot(230)

Jane Addams, Hull House, and Chicago's Nineteenth Ward

In the fall of 1889, Jane Addams and Ellen Gates Starr opened Hull House on Chicago’s Near West Side, full of good intentions to help the poor people of the neighborhood. They were a force for good, p...

10 Elo 46min

Buddy Bradley

Buddy Bradley, born in the Jim Crow South in 1905, made his way to Harlem at age 16 where he learned to tap dance and became a chorus boy. He was sought out on Broadway as both teacher and choreograph...

27 Heinä 50min

The All-American Girls Professional Baseball League

During World War II, afraid that major league baseball would need to pause while men were overseas fighting, Philip K. Wrigley, chewing gum mogul and owner of the Chicago Cubs, spearheaded a new profe...

13 Heinä 54min

The Declaration of Independence

The Continental Congress voted to break from Great Britain on July 2, 1776, and approved the text of the Declaration of Independence on July 4, but it took weeks for the news to spread throughout the ...

29 Kesä 48min

The Statue of Liberty and the Empire State Building

The Statue of Liberty and the Empire State Building loom large in the American imagination, symbolizing the conflicting ideas of liberty and empire; their meanings and characters have shifted over tim...

15 Kesä 38min

An American History of Purses

Today the US handbag market is estimated to be nearly $12 billion, with most of the purchasing done by women, but into the early 20th Century purses hadn’t yet become the nearly-exclusive domain of wo...

1 Kesä 40min

The Lady Bird Special

On the morning of Tuesday, October 6, 1964, the Lady Bird Special, a 19-car train carrying First Lady Claudia “Lady Bird” Johnson, her supporters, members of the press, and a security detail, departed...

18 Touko 41min

Policing Slavery & Black Rebellion in the American South

Enslaved Africans were forcibly shipped to Virginia starting in 1619 in response to a severe labor shortage. From the beginning, enslaved laborers resisted by fleeing and through violence, and white e...

4 Touko 50min