Secondary Source
Eleanor Roosevelt and the Women’s City Club of New York
Elisabeth Israels Perry. "Women’s City Club of New York," in The Eleanor Roosevelt Encyclopedia, eds. Maurine H. Beasley, Holly C. Shulman, and Henry R. Beasley. Westport, CT.: Greenwood, 2001. (Pp. 575-576.)
Era: Suffrage Era | Media: Encyclopedia Entry
In this encyclopedia entry, historian Elisabeth Israels Perry summarizes what the Women’s City Club of New York was and how it influenced the life of Eleanor Roosevelt.
The suffrage movement stimulated civic-minded women to form various organizations to promote social improvement. One of them was the Women’s City Club of New York. Founded in 1915 by suffragists, the WCCNY advocated a progressive agenda that appealed to a membership whose ranks included nearly 3,000 people by the time women’s suffrage was won nationwide.
Roosevelt was a prominent member of the WCCNY, and Perry explains how the group “served as an important training ground for Eleanor Roosevelt’s public life.” Roosevelt took on many leadership roles within the club, and it also served as a social network to which she turned when she was in the White House alongside her husband and wanted to drum up political support for New Deal programs. Roosevelt also wrote speeches, reports, and political analysis while a member.
The encyclopedia is accessible through ProQuest’s e-book repository, which is available through many library databases. You can check WorldCat to see if there’s one near you.
Excerpts of the book are available on Google Books, and it is also available for sale on Amazon.
