The Roosevelts and Fiorello La Guardia

  

As La Guardia looks on, President Roosevelt  

signs proclamation naming December 15 as

‘Bill of Rights  Day’ at the White House, 1941

For more photos click here and here

At rally to fight for enactment of Fair Employment Practices Act, La Guardia speaks with FEP committee co-chairman A. Philip Randolph and Eleanor Roosevelt, 1946

Steven A. Levine

Coordinator for Educational Programs

This past Sunday, PBS began airing “The Roosevelts: An Intimate History,” Ken Burns’s documentary about the lives of Theodore, Franklin, and Eleanor Roosevelt.  In 1934 FDR gained a great ally when Fiorello La Guardia became mayor of New York City.  La Guardia defeated Tammany Hall and brought clean and efficient government to NYC, while successfully creating a direct relationship to the White House to fund New Deal projects.  La Guardia, the son of immigrants, came from a humble background, while Eleanor and Franklin descended from one of America’s oldest families.  They nevertheless developed close political friendships, based on shared goals. Under La Guardia’s leadership, New York City used New Deal funds to employ hundreds of thousands to build highways, subways, schools, hospitals, parks, housing and other infrastructure. 

The importance of the relationship between La Guardia and Franklin and Eleanor can be found in the La Guardia and Wagner Archives’ collection, containing 16 photos of Eleanor and 20 photos of Franklin.  If you would like to learn more about La Guardia, the Roosevelts and the New Deal, please feel free to contact me

   

President Roosevelt, Governor Lehman, and Mayor La Guardia campaign together in the 1940 election   campaign.

La Guardia,head of joint U.S.-Canada Defense Board, meets with President Roosevelt and military brass at the White House, 1940          

La Guardia, union leader Sidney Hillman,and Eleanor Roosevelt talking at a dinner honoring Eleanor at the Hotel Commodore, 1941

La Guardia and FDR at the annual Roosevelt Picnic at Hyde Park, NY, 1938 

Happy Birthday Eleanor Roosevelt, October 11, 1884

First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt and Mayor Robert F. Wagner, 1956

Steven A. Levine

Coordinator for Educational Programs

In 1963, a year after Eleanor Roosevelt’s death, Mayor Robert F. Wagner memorialized her at the National Roosevelt Day Dinner of the Americans for Democratic Action, the liberal organization she co-founded in the late 1940s. Click here to read Mayor Wagner's speech.

Wagner's relationship with President Roosevelt and First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt was closer than the ones he had with most New York politicians. His father, Senator Robert F. Wagner was a close confidant of the president, going back to their days in the New York State Legislature and the young Wagner knew the future president and first lady from his childhood. But in his years as mayor, Eleanor Roosevelt became both critic and adviser to him. “She instructed me, she criticized me, both publicly and privately. On more than one occasion, she censured me, to my profit, I might add. . . . She was more than a great lady, more than a great personality, more than a great humanitarian. She was a great phenomenon in a phenomenal age.”

If you want to learn more about Eleanor Roosevelt or use other Roosevelt related materials in your classroom, please contact me or Tara Jean Hickman thickman@lagcc.cuny.edu at the Archives.