Which woman would you like to see on the $10 bill? The U.S. Treasury Department is seeking nominations for that honor.
I didn’t have to think about it twice: Eleanor Roosevelt (1884-1962). Besides being an extremely energetic activist First Lady, wife of President Franklin D. Roosevelt during their White House years (1933-1945), this courageous, outspoken woman was a “First” in many other ways.
Eleanor Roosevelt was so far ahead of her time, so much so that the causes she championed became later the landmark, defining causes of the latter half of the 20th Century, and they remain so. Her critics derided her as a busybody, a meddler, a prissy do-gooder, an anti-American, a communist. She ignored their slander and persisted in her struggles on behalf of human rights far and wide, the rights of women in the workplace and elsewhere, civil rights for African-Americans and Asian-Americans and recognition for their myriad contributions to this country, help for unemployed people in the Great Depression, support for labor unions, the fight against cruel child-labor practices, assistance for refugees shattered by war, the need for livable working wages, the importance of constant diplomatic work to maintain world peace.
Eleanor did more – far more – than give lip service to those and other causes. She donned her duds, rolled up her sleeves and left the comforts of the White House frequently to mingle with “ordinary” Americans: miners, blacks, the hungry, the homeless, working women, the ailing, the crippled and the dispossessed. During her tireless work in prodding the powers that be to bring kindness and justice to others, she eventually became a kind of national conscience and to some of her detractors a burr under their saddles. She was, in some sense, a secular “saint.”
After the death of her husband in his fourth and last presidential term, she continued her work, becoming one of the first United Nations delegates, the first chair of the UN Commission on Human Rights, a key player in drafting a Universal Declaration of Human Rights and chair of John F. Kennedy’s Presidential Commission on the Status of Women.
Eleanor was also the first First Lady to write a syndicated newspaper column, the first to speak at a national political convention and the first to host press conferences as a savvy communicator with print and electronic media (radio in those days).
What is most astonishing about this magnificent woman is she grew up in a terrible web of verbal and emotional abuse, enduring constant slights and humiliations even from her own relatives, being called an “ugly duckling” and becoming painfully shy in the process. Later, she learned that her husband, the president, had been cheating on her. Eleanor’s transcendent triumph over her emotionally crippling background is one of the grand success stories in American history. The humiliations she endured no doubt ironically made her stronger, as some wounds do, and caused the deep, inexhaustible compassion she had for others in her many fights for justice.
When I was a student in St. Cloud’s Washington Elementary School, Mrs. Roosevelt paid a visit to the school, as she did to countless schools across the nation. I vaguely remember her popping into my first-grade classroom to say a few kind, encouraging words to us, and, if I recall correctly, she was wearing what looked to me like a dowdy old-lady purple dress and had some creepy fox stole around her shoulders. But I remember most of all that she had a very bright shining smile on her kind of smear of a mouth showing crooked teeth. She looked, in fact, almost just like our sourpuss school nurse who was, unfortunately, not blessed with a radiant smile.
I hope the Treasury Department sees fit to honor Eleanor Roosevelt, one of the greatest women in history.
I also hope that department sees fit someday to honor this nation’s world-class creative giants, as France does on so many of its paper-money notes. The women writers I would nominate are, first and foremost, Emily Dickinson (1830-1886), who ranks right up there in the pantheon of greatest poets of all time. Another obvious candidate is Harriet Beecher Stowe (1811-1896), the author of Uncle Tom’s Cabin, the powerful anti-slavery novel that changed many people’s stony hearts and minds. Yet another is Willa Cather (1873-1947), who wrote masterful novels of life on the Nebraska prairie, such as My Antonia.
Painters I would nominate are Mary Cassatt (1844-1926), who held her own among the great French Impressionist artists; Georgia O’Keefe (1887-1986), who found such wonder and beauty in austere Southwest landscapes; and Louise Nevelson (1899-1988), known for her monumental wooden wall sculptures.
If singers are ever honored on American bills, my choices would be Billie Holiday, the bittersweet jazz-blues singer; Bessie Smith, quintessential blues master; Ella Fitzgerald, another innovative jazz singer; Minnesota’s “own” Judy Garland (1922-1969), that pint-sized powerhouse diva; and Joni Mitchell (1943 and still living), a pioneering Canadian-born singer-songwriter and American citizen whose songs, like fine wine, get better and better with time. Sad to say, Mitchell suffered a stroke four months ago and is trying valiantly to learn again how to talk (and hopefully) to sing again.
Do you have favorites? Send your nominations to Department of the Treasury; 1500 Pennsylvania Ave. NW; Washington, D.C. 20220.
