Eleanor Roosevelt liked to say, “A woman is like a tea bag. You never know how strong it is until it’s in hot water.” In many ways Eleanor Roosevelt would have seemed the unlikeliest of feminists: a woman with five children married to man of traditional values. But early on, she became part of a circle of women leaders in the 20s and 30s who worked for labor legislation, world peace, women’s representation the Democratic Party, civil rights, equal pay and education for women, public housing — and the rest is history. This discussion shines a light on Eleanor Roosevelt and some of the women who were her friends and colleagues in the fight for social justice.

About the speaker: CYNTHIA M. KOCH is Historian in Residence and Director of History Programing for the Franklin Delano Roosevelt Foundation at Adams House, Harvard University. She was Director of the Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library and Museum in Hyde Park, New York and subsequently Senior Adviser to the Office of Presidential Libraries, National Archives, Washington, D.C. From 2013-16 she was Public Historian in Residence at Bard College, where she taught courses in public history and Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt. Her most recent publications are “They Hated Eleanor, Too,” “Hillary R[oosevelt] Clinton,” “Demagogues and Democracy,” and “Democracy and the Election” are published online by the FDR Foundation http://fdrfoundation.org/.

Previously Dr. Koch was Associate Director of the Penn National Commission on Society, Culture and Community, a national public policy research group at the University of Pennsylvania. She served as Executive Director (1993-1997) of the New Jersey Council for the Humanities, a state affiliate of the National Endowment for the Humanities, and was Director (1979-1993) of the National Historic Landmark Old Barracks Museum in Trenton, New Jersey.

Join us beside a crackling fire in the FDR Suite 7 PM Monday 3/26

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