The First Ladies

The First Ladies follows the friendship of Eleanor Roosevelt and Mary McLeod Bethune with historical accuracy. When compared to multiple articles (e.g., “Eleanor and Mary McLeod Bethune”; “The Unlikely Friendship of Eleanor Roosevelt and Mary McLeod Bethune”; “Mary McLeod Bethune: American Educator”) and the women’s firsthand accounts, the novel is faithful to real-life events. In the Historical Note, authors Benedict and Murray state that they investigated the characters through visiting Bethune-Cookman University, reading Albert Jr.’s biography about his grandmother, reading newspapers, looking at microfilm, analyzing letters between Eleanor and Mary, and more. Benedict and Murray are close friends, and in this collaboration sought to balance the respect for history and their desire to write a story of another unique friendship.

Mary was the last of 17 children born to her parents but the first of their children to be born into freedom. Her family worked on a plantation, and Mary picked cotton as a child. She graduated from Scotia Seminary, a boarding school in North Caroline, and attended Dwight Moody’s Institute for Home and Foreign Missions in Chicago, Illinois with the intent of becoming a missionary. She later founded the Daytona Beach Literary and Industrial School for Training Negro Girls, which eventually became a college. Later, the college merged with Cookman Institute, and in 1931 the school earned accreditation as a junior college and was renamed Bethune-Cookman College. She was a founder of the United Negro College Fund and served 15 years as the vice president of the NAACP. Franklin Roosevelt appointed her director of the Division of Negro Affairs of the National Youth Administration, and she was the “only woman of color at the founding conference of the United Nations” (“Our Founder: Dr. Mary McLeod Bethune.” Bethune-Cookman University).

Eleanor was an independent woman who struggled with being a political wife and mother. Still, she had six children with Franklin (her fifth cousin) and always assisted her husband with the long-term effects of polio, which he contracted in 1921. She established “Val-Kill Industries, a non-profit furniture factory in Hyde Park, New York, and taught at the Todhunter School, a private girls’ school in New York City,” all of which Benedict and Murray include in The First Ladies (“Eleanor Roosevelt Biography.” Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library and Museum). Eleanor grew from a being a shy socialite to a force for progressive social policies. She wasn’t afraid to stand up for her beliefs. She joined the NAACP and brought national attention to racial segregation when the Daughters of the American Revolution refused to let Marian Anderson, a Black opera singer, perform in their Washington, DC, concert hall. She was also the first first lady to host a press conference. Her syndicated newspaper column, “My Day,” was published from 1935 until 1962. All these moments, and more, are well-illustrated in The First Ladies.

Mary and Eleanor first met in 1927 at a luncheon at the home of Eleanor’s mother-in-law, Sara, who was hosting a luncheon for the National Council of Women; none of the white women would sit with Mary. Though the novel portrays Eleanor and Mary’s friendship and professional milestones accurately, the authors invented their dialogue and characterization, including from their first meeting. In the Historical Note, they write they “filled in the gaps”:

In the areas where the record about Mary and Eleanor’s connection was spotty or unclear or altogether missing, we extrapolated from our understanding of their characters and our own experiences. As a Black woman and a white woman, with a very close friendship and a desire to make positive change in the world, we’ve had honest, challenging conversations that we imagined Mary and Eleanor might have shared as well. And so we included them (371-72).

Benedict and Murray relied on their extensive research (articles, correspondence, and other records) to imagine Eleanor’s and Mary’s private thoughts and conversations. Some issues were clearer than others: for example, Eleanor’s feelings of betrayal after Franklin’s infidelity or Mary’s stress when she was investigated by the FBI. More difficult to approximate is Eleanor’s relationship with journalist Lorena Alice “Hick” Hickok; historians have debated the nature of their friendship for decades.

Benedict and Murray omit some details, such as how Mary’s all-girls’ college merged with a nearby men’s school in 1923 to form Bethune-Cookman College. The authors elaborate on other aspects they had to change for the story’s flow in the Historical Note, including the following: “Mary did not accompany Eleanor to the Tuskegee Air Field, and Eleanor did not go to San Francisco to surprise Mary. We felt strongly, however, that they were together in spirit on those momentous occasions, and depicted them as such” (372). In their process of focusing the plotlines on the Eleanor and Mary’s friendship, they omitted details about each woman’s early life.