{"id":18181,"date":"2021-03-31T12:53:28","date_gmt":"2021-03-31T19:53:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/?p=18181"},"modified":"2021-03-31T12:53:30","modified_gmt":"2021-03-31T19:53:30","slug":"a-radical-education-how-greenwich-village-transformed-eleanor-roosevelt","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/2021\/03\/31\/a-radical-education-how-greenwich-village-transformed-eleanor-roosevelt\/","title":{"rendered":"A RADICAL EDUCATION: HOW GREENWICH VILLAGE TRANSFORMED ELEANOR ROOSEVELT"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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VIA SCRIBNER<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jan Jarboe Russell on the Friendships That Inspired and Nourished a Former First Lady<\/h4>\n\n\n\n

By Jan Jarboe Russell<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

March 30, 2021 (lithub.com)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe giving of love is an education in itself.\u201d
\u2013Eleanor Roosevelt<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

It was in Greenwich Village that Eleanor Roosevelt became the strong woman that we now know. From 1920 until the end of her life in 1962, she was actively connected to the political and social mix of the neighborhood. Paradoxically, her early years in the Village helped her gain the strength in her political convictions and in her personal confidence that would be essential to lifting Franklin to the presidency, even as their increasingly difficult marriage drove her to seek friendship and stimulation elsewhere\u2014particularly in the Village. One might even legitimately wonder if FDR ever would have become president were it not for Eleanor\u2019s ongoing and transformative experiences in the Village.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Eleanor experienced in 1920 what Ross Wetzsteon, editor of The Village Voice<\/em>, captured in his book Republic of Dreams: Greenwich Village: The American Bohemia, 1910\u20131960<\/em><\/a>: \u201cThe essence of the Village was to create a miniature society where personal idiosyncrasy could flourish through communal society\u2026 Even Americans who remain hostile to the Village have become fascinated by it because it has become a kind of laboratory in which a nation at once dedicated to militant individualism and middle class conformity could witness attempts to overcome that paradox.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 1921 Eleanor made two friends who would influence the rest of her life: Esther Everett Lape and Elizabeth Fisher Read, a lesbian couple who lived in the Village. Read was a lawyer who later became Eleanor\u2019s financial adviser, and Lape was a highly respected professor of English and journalist, and was a cofounder of the nonpartisan League of Women Voters (est. 1919). Together, they formed a three-way friendship that became the nucleus of Eleanor\u2019s support network.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the early 1920s they joined what was then called the \u201cNew Woman Movement\u201d in Greenwich Village, part of a larger awakening and activism of educated and increasingly independent-minded women in Britain, Europe, and the US that dated back to the mid-1890s. The movement organized for social change, unions for workers, equal pay for equal work, and protection for child workers, and insisted on women having their own sexual freedom. Members disagreed about politics and political parties. Some, like Eleanor, were Democrats, while others were Socialists and Communists, even Republicans.Video list is empty.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Eleanor\u2019s brand of feminism, shaped by these women, was moved by compassion, bottled-up sexuality, and the quest for her own truth. This all happened as the Village was coming alive, working around Prohibition and freeing women to drink or smoke in public with men. There was a determination to end misunderstanding and inequality between the sexes, and Eleanor and her friends, particularly Lape and Read, laid the groundwork for tackling gender inequality that would inspire the later 20th-century feminist movement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Eleanor fought for women to be educated, to own their own property, and to receive equal pay for equal work. She and her friends often called themselves \u201cthe newest\u201d of the \u201cNew Women.\u201d Unlike the younger flappers, who favored bobbed hairstyles and short skirts and frequented speakeasies, the New Women organized for social change and freely disagreed among themselves about politics and political parties. \u201cIf women could believe<\/em> they were free,\u201d Eleanor said, \u201cthey could behave<\/em> as if they were free<\/em>, then they would be free.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When Eleanor was tired at the end of a weary and ragged day, she would often go to 20 East 11th Street, where Esther and Elizabeth lived. The brownstone was built in the prewar style; it was five stories tall and contained nine apartments. The street outside their house was serene, and the mood in their book-lined living room was set by beautiful rugs and objects, and for Eleanor, a feeling of comfort and of being appreciated.Eleanor\u2019s brand of feminism\u2026 was moved by compassion, bottled-up sexuality, and the quest for her own truth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the 1930s, Eleanor would rent a pied-\u00e0-terre of her own on the fourth floor, above Lape and Read. Her apartment would be small compared to her other homes, only 1,350 square feet, but it had high ceilings, good light, and a sunporch that overlooked the gardens on the roof. Eleanor often slept on the sunporch. Today, a plaque outside the house memorializes Eleanor\u2019s time in the apartment; no mention is made of Lape and Read\u2019s residence there.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As the 1920s got under way, Eleanor had little interest in her appearance, but fashion was very important to Lape and Read, whose clothes were custom-made. Lape\u2019s were particularly extravagant\u2014silks, velvets, brocades that lasted many years. Read wore dark tailored suits with string ties. In time, Eleanor used the same designer for her wardrobe.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dress is a way of expressing one\u2019s self but can also be a way of hiding. In those early years in Greenwich Village, Eleanor took her signals from the way that Lape dressed. They both wore large hats and black dresses that swept close to their ankles. Their bodies were hidden, but Eleanor held her head high, as proud of her height as she had been in England with Marie Souvestre and her circle of women friends.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The three women hosted small salons in the Greenwich Village apartment and invited other New Woman neighbors over for formal dinners. They read the classics and poetry aloud in French to one another long into the evening. The food was excellent, and even Eleanor sometimes sipped champagne. They talked about politics and organized ways that the New Women could promote rights for all women and all races of women. Many of Eleanor\u2019s later ideas came from these dinners. In the presence of her friends, she felt an awakening in herself and a calming of her spirit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Elizabeth Read wrote a letter to Narcissa Vanderlip about whether the cause of women\u2019s rights was more important than private relationships. The letter said in part: \u201cIf a person is lucky enough to meet a human being that is worth devotion, that\u2014in the absence of a crisis, or an all-compelling call\u2014is the important thing\u2014always remembering that selfish<\/em> devotion defeats its purpose, that limiting life to the devotion eventually kills it. In other words, it is a matter of a balance that changes every day.\u201d Eleanor remembered Read\u2019s words and put them into action\u2014to avoid selfish ideas, to care for her own soul, to help those in need.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Eleanor also took to heart Virginia Woolf\u2019s idea that because the reality of life often overwhelms women, they must be stronger. As Woolf famously wrote: \u201cSo when I ask you to earn money and have a room of your own, I am asking you to live in the presence of reality, an invigorating life, it would appear, whether one can impart it or not.\u201d All of this Eleanor decided was necessary and in the long run, she lived by Woolf\u2019s ideas: to live in the presence of what is the truth, what is strong, what is real.<\/p>\n\n\n\n