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Eleanor Roosevelt letter to Anna Louise Strong regarding the situation in Finland, December 13, 1939
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| Title | Eleanor Roosevelt letter to Anna Louise Strong regarding the situation in Finland, December 13, 1939 |
| Author | Roosevelt, Eleanor, 1884-1962 |
| Publication Date | 1939 |
| Notes | This letter conveys Eleanor Roosevelt's reaction to correspondence received from Anna Louise Strong. Roosevelt assures Strong that she's been mistaken about the government's information from Spain. She notes that the President had consistently received letters from the American ambassador to Spain, Claude Bowers, which had not been tampered with: Roosevelt also states that she'd shared Strong's opinions with her husband, and that he felt that Strong should have much more confidence in both himself and in Secretary of State Cordell Hull. Roosevelt adds her own feeling that the President and Secretary Hull receive accurate information. Lastly, Roosevelt disagrees with the sentiments of Constancia de la Mora, a communist and Spanish expatriate, regarding the Soviet invasion of Finland. Although Constancia de la Mora felt the Finns should be joyous at the thought of a change in their government, Roosevelt notes that "no matter how much you should want to be ruled by certain people, if you do not want to be ruled by them, it does not make you joyous." |
| Contextual Notes | Eleanor Roosevelt (1884-1962) was First Lady of the United States from 1933 to 1945 as the wife of President Franklin D. Roosevelt (as well as being the niece of an earlier American president, Theodore Roosevelt). In the 1930s, she had become a prominent advocate for the New Deal and the African-American civil rights movement. During World War II, she became an advocate for the United Nations, and later served as the United States' delegate to the U.N., chairing the commission that composed the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
Anna Louise Strong (1885-1970) was an American journalist and political activist throughout her life. After spending much of the 1910s working as a progressive advocate for child welfare, she became involved in the labor movement, and through that movement increasingly identified herself with international communism. She spent much of the 1920s and 1930s living in the Soviet Union, meeting with men such as Leon Trotsky and Joseph Stalin, and writing books about her experiences for Western audiences in an attempt to build support for the USSR. During World War II, she continued to promote the cause of communism, although her support for the Chinese communist movement alienated her from the government in Moscow, limiting her to one visit to the Soviet Union in the final two decades of her life. She spent most of those years living in the People's Republic of China, befriending Zhou Enlai and Mao Zedong, and continuing to publish books and articles in support of communism until the end of her life. |
| Subjects (LCSH) | Roosevelt, Eleanor, 1884-1962--Correspondence; Strong, Anna Louise, 1885-1970--Correspondence; Russo-Finnish War, 1939-1940 |
| Geographic Coverage | Finland
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| Digital Collection | Pamphlet and Textual Documents Collection
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| Digital ID Number | PAM0373 |
| Ordering Information | To order a reproduction or inquire about permissions contact: photos@u.washington.edu. Please cite the Order Number. |
| Repository | University of Washington Libraries. Special Collections Division. |
| Repository Collection | Anna Louise Strong papers. Accession No. 1309-001. Box 1/76 |
| Object Type | Letter (correspondence)
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| Physical Description | 1 leaf; 23.5 x 15.5 cm. |
| Digital Reproduction Information | Scanned from original text or image at 200 dpi saved in TIFF format, resized and enhanced using Adobe Photoshop, and imported as JPEG2000 using Contentdm software's JPEG2000 Extension. 2010. |
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