Americans Think About President and Mrs. Roosevelt: Term Paper

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Americans Think about President and Mrs. Roosevelt: What can you learn from these letters about the writers' impressions of the president and his wife? What do they expect or hope the president or his wife will do? What conclusions would you draw about the popularity of the president or about why people might have voted for him?

It is humbling and even awe-inspiring to read between the lines of the letters to the President and Mrs. Roosevelt during the early years of the Great Depression in this country. In an election year such as ours, that has proved so divisive to the American populace, and provoked such cynicism, letters such as these that begin, in one addressed to the First Lady, from a Kansas housewife of 1934, "My dear Friend," seem to come from another world, another nation, where the president's wife is a friend and the president is a friend and savior. (McElvaine 218-222)

The author addresses this politician's wife, a woman from an entirely different social class and milieu, who she has never met nor is likely to meet, as an intimate and companion. "Just listened to the address given by your dear husband, our wonderful President." (McElvaine 218-222) Roosevelt's policies are given short shrift in this letter, suggesting that people responded more to Roosevelt's persona than the specifics of his policies during the initial phase of his New Deal.

Clearly, Americans during this era of economic despair needed and expected a friend whom they felt could help them. They found such a friend in the image of Roosevelt.

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They were looking, to put it bluntly, for a good man, a saving man, and a kindly father and confidant. "When I received this fine picture my dear mother (who has since been called Home) said to Delores 'Who is this man?' And Delores answered without hesitation 'Why who else, but Saint Roosevelt' ... Indeed we all feel if there ever was a Saint. He is one. As long as Pres. Roosevelt will be our leader under Jesus Christ we feel no fear. His speech this morning showed he feels for the 'least of these.'" (McElvaine 218-222) Feeling low, this woman looks to a Christ figure to bring the lowly high.

One man writes to the First Lady as if Roosevelt is both male and female in a Godlike fashion, "strange to say when he was speaking to see the moisten eyes and deep feeling of….....

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