Roosevelt in Retrospect.
Anna Roosevelt’s Copy
Roosevelt, Eleanor. Gunther, John. Roosevelt in Retrospect. A Profile in History. New York: Harper & Brothers (1950).
8vo.; extensive marginalia in Anna Roosevelt’s hand; black cloth stamped in gilt; with loosely inserted Christmas card from Eleanor Roosevelt to John Boettiger, n.d., signed, “with Love Grandmother.” Two-inch stain along bottom edge of front cover. In a specially made cloth box.
First edition. Anna Roosevelt’s copy, docketed by her, in pencil, on the front free endpaper. Gunther’s 1950 work was one of the first serious, comprehensive studies of FDR to appear after his death. An analysis of the man and his character, as well as a study of the politician and his policies, Gunther’s detailed portrait gave Anna Roosevelt Boettiger plenty to chew on, and she was voluminous in her marginalia. Her words, mostly written in red pencil, are not just a fascinating argument with Gunther, but constitute a brief, alternative life, written, literally, between the lines and on the margins. Many of her notations constitute fresh pieces of evidence into the life of her father.
There are colorful elaborations or modifications of Gunther’s points. A footnote on page 77, citing Grace Tully’s observation that FDR never speculated while he was President, prompted Anna to write “He loved ‘wild catfish’ & sometimes put money into them.” When Gunther bungles FDR’s words about his preference for rare meat, Anna is there to provide the correction: “It ‘should fly through the kitchen’ was his expression.” (p. 92) When Gunther ruminates about Roosevelt’s understanding of the value of his autograph and inscribed books, Anna exclaims: “He darned well knew the value!” (p. 103) Gunther’s observation that FDR sympathized with the working classes drew this familial swipe: “Unlike the T.R.’s.” (p. 153)
Anna had plenty of corrections to make: The section on Howe and Hopkins (pages 84-87) was “not too good an evaluation” in her estimation. When Gunther marvels at the ability of a polio to overcome his disability and “be President four times,” Anna sharply notes that “This was not a goal he set for himself” (p. 240). But her comments are by no means merely corrective and argumentative. Several offer fresh insights into FDR. On page 128, for example, we learn, surprisingly, that FDR—notorious for his ad hoc style of administration—actually lamented the lack of stability in American government and regretted the absence of a permanent cadre of civil servants, as existed in England. At the opening of Chapter 10, “The Bloom of Youth,” Anna makes a perceptive comment on FDR’s childhood: “He had no distractions in childhood, education was continually pushed; he was lonely, but didn’t understand this, never knowing anything else.” On page 171 she ascribes FDR’s reforming impulses almost entirely to the influence of Eleanor, noting they were little in evidence before his marriage.
She’s back to correcting Gunther, however, when he mistakenly has FDR “puzzled” by the “strange,” activist women in Eleanor’s circle: the cosmopolitan FDR was by no means puzzled or even shocked by lesbians, feminists or radicals. Only “visionaries” put him off, Anna writes, those “whom he felt did not know realities or how to deal with them” (p. 249). When Gunther suggests, at page 280, that Roosevelt was politically thrown off stride by a conservative backlash following the Hundred Days, Anna writes, “Through all that time, ran the thread of definite planning for definite objectives, ‘controls’ under a democratic system.”
One of her longest commentaries, spread across three of the four edges on page 294, touches on FDR’s thoughts about a third term. In response to Gunther’s line: “The pendulum of American public opinion can travel a wide arc swiftly,” Anna wrote: “This he mentioned when d
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