t the insistance of her domineering mother in law, not of her husband then seized on the opportunity presented by World War I to take them up again.2
Even more fundamentally to the point, Eleanor Roosevelt's role seems characteristic of that of a typical modern First Lady because she invented the role of First Lady as we know it today. Before Eleanor Roosevelt, Presidents' wives served as White House social hostesses and little more.3 Publicly and politically, First Ladies were in effect to be seen and not heard. Eleanor Roosevelt dramaticaly changed that role. Soon after her husband was elected, she began to hold regular press conferences something First Ladies had not done before. Her press conferences were normally limited to woman reporters ("newspaper ________
2William H. Chafe, "Biographical Sketch," in Joan Hoff Wilson and Marjorie Lightman, eds., Without Precedent: The Life and Career of Eleanor Roosevelt (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1984), 5 7.
3Abigail A. McCarthy, "Eleanor Roosevel
...