The First Lady of Radio

Eleanor Roosevelt’s Historic Broadcasts
Edited by:

Published to coincide with an American RadioWorks® documentary, the first-ever compilation of Eleanor Roosevelt’s historic radio appearances, with a foreword by Blanche Wiesen Cook

“[Eleanor Roosevelt] was terrified of speaking in public at first, and her high-pitched voice could sail off uncontrollably. Yet she became one of the most effective speakers of her time.”
—David McCullough

On December 7, 1941, as a stunned nation gathered around the radio to hear the latest about Pearl Harbor, Eleanor Roosevelt was preparing for her weekly Sunday evening national radio program. At 6:45 p.m., listeners to the NBC Blue network heard the First Lady’s calm, measured voice explain that the president was conferring with his top advisers to address the crisis. It was a remarkable broadcast. With America on the verge of war, the nation heard first not from their president, but from his wife.

Eleanor Roosevelt’s groundbreaking career as a professional radio broadcaster is almost entirely forgotten. As First Lady, she hosted a series of prime-time programs that revolutionized how Americans related to their chief executive and his family. Now The First Lady of Radio rescues these broadcasts from the archives, presenting a carefully curated sampling of transcripts of Roosevelt’s most famous and influential radio shows, edited and set into context by award-winning author and radio producer Stephen Drury Smith. With a foreword by Roosevelt’s famed biographer, historian Blanche Wiesen Cook, The First Lady of Radio is both a historical treasure and a fascinating window onto the power and influence of a pioneering First Lady.

News and Reviews

Publishers Weekly

Publishers Weekly reviews The First Lady of Radio

Books by Stephen Drury Smith

Free All Along
The Robert Penn Warren Civil Rights Interviews

Stephen Drury Smith, Catherine Ellis

After the Fall
New Yorkers Remember September 2001 and the Years That Followed

Mary Marshall Clark, Peter Bearman, Catherine Ellis, Stephen Drury Smith

Say It Loud
Great Speeches on Civil Rights and African American Identity

Catherine Ellis, Stephen Drury Smith

Say It Plain
A Century of Great African American Speeches

Catherine Ellis, Stephen Drury Smith

Goodreads Reviews