NPC in History: Eleanor Roosevelt breaks precedence

By 1938, in the four years that the National Press Club had been holding its regular luncheon speeches, it had never offered the podium to a woman. But Club President Harold Brayman of the Philadelphia Ledger decided to break that trend by inviting the most newsworthy woman in America: First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt.

Through the work of Maureen Beasley, a noted journalism historian and member of the Club’s History and Heritage Committee, the Club obtained facsimile copies of the correspondence between Mrs. Roosevelt and Brayman.

Writing on July 1, 1938, Brayman said, “We have never yet had a woman speaker, and we would like now to break the ice and have you, as the most outstanding American woman of today as the first speaker at such a luncheon.” He proposed a date in July, and said the speech could be on or off the record as she desired.

The letter arrived at the White House, and the next day Mrs. Roosevelt notated on it, “Pretty nice!”

What followed was a series of letters as President Brayman and the First Lady settled on a date, on a topic and choosing to have the speech off the record.

“I am very much flattered that you want me to speak at one of your luncheons, and I regret very much I will not be back in Washington during July and August,” Mrs. Roosevelt wrote. “Would Thursday, Sept. 29 be an agreeable date for you?”

In note in her own handwriting, Mrs. Roosevelt wrote to Brayman, “I have put down Sept. 29 & will be with you at 12:30. Have you any choice of subject? Perhaps instead of a speech, they would like to ask questions. And do let’s have it off the record!”

In a letter July 23, Brayman suggested the topic of “a discussion of the resettlement projects of which you are so interested.” In a handwritten note on the side, Mrs. Roosevelt wrote “Will take resettlements.”

This referred to a New Deal policy she had been promoting that encouraged the federal government to build communities for unemployed and homeless workers and their families, especially in West Virginia’s coal country. One of them was even named Eleanor in her honor. These were small communities of about 150 homes on acre lots with a chicken coop, a garden and – something new to many residents – indoor plumbing. The communities had small manufacturing operations, perhaps a dairy, a canning operation and a grocery story.

Conservatives called the communities “socialism,” and Mrs. Roosevelt’s wrongheaded and expensive pet projects. But Mrs. Roosevelt, who had seen scrawny children eating scraps, insisted on building the communities. Some of them failed. But Eleanor, W.V., remains as a town of about 1,500 people.

Mrs. Roosevelt spoke about resettlements on Sept. 28, 1938 – a last minute change of date. As she requested, the remarks were off the record, so we don’t know exactly what she said. In a letter the next day, Brayman thanked her and said, “You did a perfectly magnificent job, and your audience was very deeply moved.”

Of the event, Mrs. Roosevelt wrote in “My Day,” her regular newspaper, “I have just attended a luncheon at the men's National Press Club where I was the only woman present, and I found it a most interesting and delightful occasion.”

This is another in a series provided by Club historian Gil Klein. Dig down anywhere in the Club’s 111-year history, and you will find some kind of significant event in the history of the world, the nation, Washington and the Club itself. Many of these events were caught in illustrations that tell the stories.