How a millennial trans woman born in the mid-1980s came to dedicate so much of her life to the study of the most outspoken and independent U.S. former First Lady and diplomat born a century earlier.
By Athena Jeanne Hale
(Picture, above is of me visiting the Eleanor Roosevelt statue at the FDR National Monument in Washington, D.C. this past February)
Many have asked me variations of the same question: “Why Eleanor Roosevelt?” “How did you come to study Eleanor Roosevelt?” “What is it about Eleanor Roosevelt that draws you so much?” In this blog post I will attempt to answer these questions as well as what about me and my life makes Eleanor Roosevelt a fitting topic of study. You will learn a lot about my family and my story in this post.
Our patriarchal society fundamentally neither values nor respects older women and their accomplishments. Older women are expected to be silent and invisible unless they are standing in the kitchen or sitting at the dinner table (and even there they are often treated condescendingly). Any older woman who defies that expectation and attempts to make a career for herself and take on public leadership and authority faces backlash, hostility, and is often passed over in positions for far less qualified and far less competent men. The painfully recent 2016 U.S. Presidential election is an extreme example of this phenomenon. Older women, particularly ambitious, commanding, and powerful older women are socially constructed as inferior, objectionable, and even loathsome.
I was raised in a household that completely defied and diverged from this construction. My grandmother, whom my single mother and I lived with until she died of stomach cancer in 1993 when I was seven, was the single most influential and prominent person in my childhood and chiefly responsible for my early development as a person. Beverly Jeanne Schumacher, known by Jeanne or Jeannie, was not just our family Matriarch and did not just inspire in me a lifelong passion for cooking (she did fit that bill like many wonderful grandmothers) but she was also a successful professional and highly respected leader in the community of Imperial Beach, California (south of San Diego) where we lived. Before I was born, my grandmother served as the Assistant Director of the San Diego Boys and Girls Club in the late 1970s and the director of Admissions at San Diego Job Corps in the early 1980s (both highly rewarding jobs that, alas, paid very little money) before retiring when her health started to decline. She remained active and involved in the community after retirement. She spearheaded programs that worked with teens at risk for dropping out of school and turned their lives around. She found them jobs, personally tutored them until they found passion in learning, and gave them hope. Everyone within a twenty block radius knew and respected my grandmother; when Jeanne Schumacher spoke, people listened.
My grandmother, Jeanne Schumacher, in the 1960s (left) and in the early 1990s (right). Photos credit: Family collection.
My grandmother was highly independent and individual, highly intellectual (studied literature and history), highly creative (she was an accomplished local artist and craftswoman), highly authoritative, and highly compassionate and empathetic to others. She instilled all of these qualities in me. She also sewed the seeds of my value system and activism. She was a strong feminist, a Civil Rights activist, an ally to the Gay liberation movement (which in the early 90s and earlier, at the height of the AIDS epidemic, was not a popular position to take), and an advocate for the rights of the local homeless community. She was also politically engaged. She took me to see then Governor Bill Clinton and his wife Hillary speak at San Diego State University during the 1992 election, when I was six years old. She also encouraged free gender expression and performance in me from my earliest age; I believe she’s the first person who really saw me for my true gender. I often wonder if I would have came out a lot sooner if she had lived to know me in my adolescence. My grandmother was overall my first and greatest hero.
My Grandmother and I (age 1) sitting in our front yard on a warm summer day, 1987. Photo credit: family collection.
So I grew up with a deep respect and admiration for older women, particularly older woman leaders, that I have carried with me always. As I developed a passion for learning history in elementary school, I often became frustrated at the lack of older women represented in the curriculum. In elementary school we learned about Susan B. Anthony and Rosa Parks and that is about it. First Ladies and Queens were not even covered in the curriculum, except in rare passing. I did not even learn about trailblazers Sandra Day O’Connor (first woman Supreme Court Justice), Ruth Bader Ginsburg (second woman Supreme Court Justice), or Madeleine Albright (first woman Secretary of State) until years later, even though the three reached the top of their respective public service careers shortly before or during my childhood.
As I entered middle school and high school, I began to study the U.S. Presidents in my classes and studied First Ladies and woman diplomats on my own time. Often these books were collections of short one-chapter biographies of the First Ladies that did not go into details about their accomplishments beyond marrying and supporting their husbands. Nevertheless I tried to learn what I could about these women with the limited resources and research skills I had at the time.
Even in high school, when I went through a particularly conservative phase influenced by my JROTC instructors and church pastors at the peak of George W. Bush’s nationalism (I will always regret voting for him in 2004, the year I turned eighteen), I still looked towards prominent women leaders to be the subjects of my study and fascination. I began to read biographies and collect books about Bush era National Security Adviser and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, for example.
After high school, I did not have the resources or the ability to qualify for the resources to begin college for some time. I could not fill out the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) because I did not have access to my parents’ tax information – a requirement for those under the age of 24 in Nevada. So I entered the workforce and bided my time until I could attend college, paying for two part-time semesters at Community College out of pocket in the meantime.
Meanwhile, I became active in politics and joined the Barack Obama primary campaign as a volunteer in late 2007. After attending one of his rallies, I connected with his contagious message of “the Audacity of Hope” and after researching his policy positions and critically thinking for myself, I began to move back to a liberal worldview and campaigned vehemently for his election (serving as a precinct captain, Washoe County delegate, and delegate to the Nevada State Democratic Convention in the process). One may ask why, since I respect and love to study older women leaders so much, I did not support Hillary Clinton in the 2008 primary. I have asked myself the same question. I think it was a combination of the charisma and charm of Barack and Michelle Obama, the fact that I still had a lot of ties to conservative influences in my life (and even then, they really hated Hillary Clinton), and the fact that one of the biggest news story of the primary was Hillary’s support for the Iraq War (I soured on Bush when I lost a few friends from high school who went into the service; lost them either permanently or in a complete shift in personality from the horrors of that war). I recognize my own hypocrisy now in criticizing someone for voting for Bush’s war when I myself voted to keep him in office. At any rate, I did not adamantly oppose Hillary in 2008 and would have proudly voted for her had she won the primary; I just preferred Obama at the time. I really favored her appointment to serve as Secretary of State. (Eight years later, I was all in for Hillary from the beginning, even serving as an organizer for her campaign in Philadelphia for six weeks).
When I returned to Community College full time in the Spring of 2011, I tried to bring women’s history into all of my classes. In U.S. History I (up to 1865), I incorporated a section on Abigail Adams into a paper on the founding fathers. In Core Humanities I (a course that looks at the history, literature, art, architecture, and philosophy of Ancient and Medieval times – of course, with an unfortunate Eurocentric focus), I wrote a hilarious multi-form long poem that combined the styles of Ancient Greek lesbian poet Sappho, Mary – mother of Jesus, Hildegard von Bingen, the Wife of Bath from Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, Joan of Arc, and Queen Elizabeth I (I wish I still had a copy!) I continued and still continue to consistently seek out and bring forth the hidden or undervalued accomplishments of women for the rest of my academic career.
In the fall of 2011, my study of Eleanor Roosevelt began. Prior to taking U.S. History II (1865 to present) with Dr. Sharon Lowe at Truckee Meadows Community College, I knew very little about Eleanor Roosevelt. I knew she was FDR’s wife, of course. I kind of knew she was Teddy’s niece. I knew she was outspoken advocate of Civil Rights. I had a vague picture of a tall woman with fox furs and a flowered hat who spoke with a funny high-pitched old-timey mid-atlantic accent. But I knew next to nothing about her story. An assignment in Dr. Lowe’s class changed my life.
One of my favorite things about Dr. Lowe and her classes was the sheer flexibility, creativity, and variability of her big assignments. She had a list of twenty different options from which each student could choose to complete for their one big assignment before the midterm, and another list of twenty different options from which each student could choose for their one big assignment after the midterm. The possibilities were endless. Standard analytical essays, book reviews, movie reviews correcting all historical inaccuracies and explaining how the writers could have been more true to history, “write a long letter from ___________ to ________” (insert historical figures), “write a letter as a constituent of ____________, complaining about their policy of _____________”, etc. The most daring and most creative assignment was to read an autobiography written by an historical figure from the time period studied during that half of the class and come to class dressed as that historical figure and give a speech about their life in their character.
For my first big assignment (before the Midterm, which covered Reconstruction through the Great Depression), I read the Theodore Roosevelt biography Theodore Rex by Edmund Morris (New York: Random House, 2001) and wrote a standard book review. For my second big assignment (covering World War II through the end of the Cold War), I wanted to continue my focus on the Roosevelts but shift to the younger generation, so I decided to embrace my theatrical nature and read Eleanor Roosevelt’s Autobiography (New York: Da Capo Press, 1992 edition) and come to class dressed in her persona. Looking back, I can see where my need to experiment with gender expression paired with my respect for older women leaders and my interest in the Roosevelts to give me the audacity to take on this assignment. (I would not come out as a trans woman for another three and a half years).
Me (right, obviously) in costume as Eleanor Roosevelt for my presentation in class in November 2011 next to a portrait of Eleanor in a similar outfit. Photo credit: personal collection; portrait credit: William Jefferson Clinton Presidential Library (portrait was presented to First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton on May, 26 1994).
I learned so much I did not know about her from Eleanor’s autobiography. I did not know about her ‘My Day’ column. I did not know she was one of the primary campaigners for FDR’s New Deal policies. I previously had no idea she traveled around the world meeting foreign dignitaries and visiting troops during World War II. I was shocked that I had never before learned that a former First Lady worked at the United Nations after leaving the White House and was in fact one of the very first American delegates to the UN General Assembly. Most significantly, I had never before learned that there was a Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948) nor that Eleanor Roosevelt was the person most responsible for its drafting and adoption. The document that became the foundation for international human rights law was created because an outspoken and unapologetic older woman and former First Lady set out to achieve it. I became obsessed with the UDHR, because I believe, like Eleanor did, that it provides the best and most concise blueprint ever created for the eradication of so many of society’s problems and is the greatest chance we have to create true and lasting peace – the main obstacles to this objective are that many governments (including our own) deliberately try to eradicate and deligitimize any education on human rights from public education systems. I argue that despite not having the legal authority to make governments adhere it it, the UDHR is an extremely powerful document precisely because governments go to such lengths to not educate their citizens on its contents.
I intend to discuss the question “What are human rights?” and the whole UDHR in depth in one of my next posts, but the main idea of the UDHR can be summed up in its first (of thirty) article:
“All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act toward one another in a spirit of brotherhood.”
The first time I read the document, I realized that everything my grandmother had ever taught me about humanity, life, and goodness could be summed up in the UDHR’s philosophy. I also realized that I deserve dignity no matter who I am. Being human was enough to qualify for rights and dignity.
I continued my scholarship of Eleanor Roosevelt and human rights throughout 2012, writing a paper on her diplomatic travels for my World War II history course, completing a major project on human rights for my International Relations political science course, and discussing her autobiography a lot in ‘the History and Culture of the Cold War’, another outstanding course taught by Dr. Lowe.
In the spring of 2013, my last semester at TMCC, the Library faculty committee (which planned scholarly events) and the history department asked me to headline their Woman’s History Month event in March with a reprisal of my Eleanor Roosevelt presentation, except bigger, better, and more detailed with a more detailed costume. I spoke on March 26, 2013 to an audience of about 50 which included my soon-to-be-wife, my mother, and one of my aunts. I even set the stage with several framed pictures of significant figures in Eleanor Roosevelt’s life and a poster-size version of the UDHR.
Me, in costume as Eleanor for my presentation at the 2013 TMCC Women’s History Month Event. Photo credit: (me) personal collection; (ER) Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library.
Video of my presentation at the 2013 TMCC Women’s History Month event, with introduction by English Professor Mark Maynard. Uploaded to my own Youtube channel but credit of TMCC Audio/Visual department.
One of the reasons why I chose Stetson University (in DeLand, FL) as the institution at which to complete my Bachelor’s degree (besides the fact they offered me a generous scholarship), was the freedom they give to students in choosing the topic of their own undergraduate thesis project (as long as students can keep to the structure and writing rules for their field of study). I knew I wanted to write mine on Eleanor Roosevelt and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and I knew I wouldn’t change my mind.
I started Stetson in the Fall of 2013 and continued to focus on Women’s history, human rights history, and Eleanor Roosevelt. I took American Women’s History with Dr. Emily Mieras in my first semester and wrote my term paper on how ER came to work at the UN and how she supported women’s rights while there. In the Spring of 2014, I applied for and was awarded a Student Undergraduate Research Experience (SURE) grant by the College of Arts and Sciences, with Dr. Mayhill Fowler as my research adviser. The SURE grant is a wonderful program they conduct each year to supplement student research and travel. For a student relying on their spouse’s paycheck just to eat, and behind on bills every month, the SURE grant really made my research possible.
In the summer of 2014, I traveled to Hyde Park, New York and spent three weeks in the archives of the Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library. I collected a bank of copies of over 400 documents and 13 audio files from Eleanor Roosevelt’s personal papers covering all UN documents related to the UDHR. While there I visited the FDR museum, Franklin and Eleanor’s graves in the Rose Garden at Springwood (FDR’s boyhood home, which shares the grounds with the Presidential Library), Eleanor Roosevelt’s own national historic site at Val-Kill Cottage, and even the Eleanor Roosevelt monument in Riverside Park, two hours south of Hyde Park in Manhattan.
The following are a sample of the many photos I took during my trip:
Statue of Eleanor and Franklin Roosevelt outside the Welcome Center at the Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library, Hyde Park, New York. Photo Credit: Personal Collection.
The graves of Franklin Delano Roosevelt 1882-1945 and Anna Eleanor Roosevelt 1884-1962 in the Rose garden at Springwood in Hyde Park. Photo Credit: Personal Collection.
The busts of Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt in the Entrance to the Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library and Museum, Hyde Park, New York. Photo Credit: Personal Collection.
Eleanor Roosevelt’s Red Cross Uniform she wore to visit the troops in both World Wars; Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library, Hyde Park, New York. Photo Credit: Personal Collection.
Eleanor Roosevelt’s personal typewriter she used to type (or dictate) many of her ‘My Day’ columns while at Val-Kill, Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library, Hyde Park, New York. Photo Credit: Personal Collection.
Collection of books written by Eleanor Roosevelt, Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library, Hyde Park, New York. Photo Credit: Personal Collection.
Val-Kill is the only National Historic Site, as recognized by the U.S. National Park Service, dedicated solely to a former U.S. First Lady. Photo Credit: Personal Collection.
Eleanor Roosevelt’s Val-Kill Cottage, Hyde Park, New York. Photo credit: Personal Collection.
Eleanor Roosevelt Monument in Manhattan, New York City, at the entrance to Riverside Park at the corner of Riverside Park Drive and West 72nd Street. Photo Credit: Personal Collection.
In the Fall semester of 2014, under the guidance of Dr. Eric Kurlander, I wrote my undergraduate thesis “Eleanor Roosevelt’s ‘Most Wonderful and Worthwhile Experience’: Chair of the United Nations’ Human Rights Commission, 1946-1948” with the documents I had collected and the book collection I was slowly accumulating. I presented my research in front of the Stetson history department faculty, my peers, my wife, and my mom who flew out specifically to visit us and see me present the research I had been working on for over a year. My presentation was excellent and received a standing ovation. I was extremely proud of my work.
In the Spring of 2015, I presented a poster at the Florida Undergraduate Research Conference (FURC), and presented powerpoint presentations at Stetson’s Gender and Sexual Diversity Conference and the National Conference on Undergraduate Research (NCUR) in Spokane Washington (heavily medicated since I fell and broke my arm the second day of the conference and still got up the next morning and gave my presentation). I was the only representative of Stetson University at the Conference. Dr. Kimberly Reiter, director of Stetson’s SURE grant program, helped me apply for all the conferences and also gave me a lot of guidance on research in general.
I won the Stetson Department of History Manuscript of the Year Award that April as well as the Ann Morris long analytical essay contest in the Gender Studies department and the Jacqueline Hogue Gentry Award for scholarly commitment to the advancement of women’s rights.
I also finally came out in February of the Spring semester 2015, and started living authentically. The knowledge, gained from the UDHR and the personal convictions of Eleanor Roosevelt, that my humanity alone granted me the right to dignity and freedom of expression and conscience, really has empowered me to stand proud in the face of all the adversity I’ve faced since.
Now, everyone who knows me associates me with Eleanor Roosevelt and I wear that association like a badge of honor. When I can finally afford to apply to grad school, I intend to continue my scholarship of Eleanor and dedicate my life to education on and the pursuit of universal human rights. In doing so, I not only carry the personal convictions of Eleanor Roosevelt forward but also the personal convictions of my grandmother and my own conscience.
All of the books I now own on Eleanor Roosevelt, including many of her own works. Photo credit: Personal Collection.
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights can be found at: http://www.un.org/en/universal-declaration-human-rights/
The online Eleanor Roosevelt Papers Project can be found at: https://erpapers.columbian.gwu.edu/
Eleanor Roosevelt's 'My Day' Revisited 