In 1933, FDR's first year in the White House, ER received
300,000 pieces of mail, in 1937, 90,000, and in 1940, 150,000.
Even after she left the White House, ER continued to receive
an enormous number of letters. She reported that in the
late 1950s she was averaging 100 letters per day. During
her controversy with Cardinal
Francis Joseph Spellman in 1949 about aid to parochial
schools, she received 6,000 letters just on that one subject.
How did ER manage this avalanche of mail? In the White House
years, Malvina
Scheider Thompson (known as "Tommy"), her personal secretary,
selected personal letters, communications from government
departments, senators and congressmen, and other letters
that seemed important from each morning's mail. The rest
of the mail was sent to the White House Social Bureau where
a staff of over twenty people classified it. Letters asking
for information were sent directly on to appropriate government
departments. Much of the mail, now organized into categories,
was sent back to Tommy. Tommy answered them herself when
possible or dictated an answer for ER to sign. Tommy placed
about fifty letters a day in ER's basket for her to read
herself. These included appeals for help and other letters
Tommy felt she could not answer, along with letters she
thought were of special interest. She tried to provide ER
with a cross-section of the correspondence that was coming
in. ER would read these letters when she found time during
the day (often late at night) and jot responses on the letter
or dictate a reply. After she left the White House in 1945,
ER followed a similar practice. Tommy and her successor,
Maureen Corr,
now did all the sorting, sometimes with help from other
secretaries, and drafted most of the replies. By the late
1950s, ER was reading and answering about twelve to fifteen
letters a day herself, in addition to those her secretary
handled for her.
Although she could only respond personally to a small number
of correspondents, it is remarkable how often ER did so
and how often she offered concrete assistance to those appealing
for help. When she was moved to provide material assistance
to someone, she would ask a friend or associate living near
the person seeking help to investigate to make sure that
the circumstances were really as her correspondent described
them. Occasionally, she would discover that the person had
invented a hard luck story. More often, the details of the
situation were confirmed and she would do her best to help,
sometimes even sending some of her own money. ER admired
"the courage of the average human being who keeps on with
the struggle of life in spite of sorrow and hardship and
disappointment," and, when possible, she wanted to reward
that courage by making the person's road a little easier.
In responding to people who wrote to her regarding domestic or international
issues, ER often wrote at much greater length to people
she did not know than to associates she knew in the world
of government, politics, and social activism. She particularly
liked to answer people who disagreed with her, and occasionally
her response would lead to an exchange of several letters.
In addition to the opportunities it gave her to communicate with individual
people or to assist them directly, ER's mail played another
important role in her work. It provided her with concrete
examples of the conditions under which people were living
and of their views on the significant issues of the day.
She used this material in her "My Day" column, in articles
she wrote, and in her numerous speeches. Because of the
kind of mail she got and the attention she gave it, as well
as the personal connections she made during her frequent
travels, no politician of her day was more immediately and
viscerally in touch with the concerns of ordinary people.
Sources:
Roosevelt, Eleanor. "How I Handle My Mail." Unpublished
article, AER Papers. Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential
Library, Hyde Park, New York.
