This is America. With typed LETTER from Mrs. Roosevelt's secretary.
Roosevelt, Eleanor. This Is America. New York: G.P. Putnam’s Sons, (1942).
Large 8vo, unpaginated; red cloth lettered in gold at the front and the spine; blue dust-jacket lettered in white, with photograph of a snowy New England street reproduced at front and back panels; wartime dust-jacket shows wear with 2” closed tear at front flap fold (front top edge down); with wear at the spinal ends (1/8” of blue eroded at head of spine); tips nicked and rubbed; the book is in lovely condition while the jacket less so (though still attractive to the eye).
First edition. Laid in is a typed letter on White House stationery, dated December 11, 1942, from Mrs. Roosevelt’s secretary writing to say that she will “gladly autograph a copy of ‘This Is America’ if you will send it to her”; accompanied by its original envelope.
In this portrait of the United States during World War II, full-page photographs by Frances Cooke Macgregor are printed opposite text by Eleanor Roosevelt. Mrs. Macgregor captures the spirit and look of America and Americans—from the beaches of New England to the mountains of the West, from a Fourth of July parade to children “pung-riding.” Other photographs reflect the country’s diversity—an elderly American Chinese man with his baby grandson, a young Afro-American girl, the Irish-American, German-American, an Austrian refugee, an English boy sent to the United States for safety during the war. The book moves through the breadth of the country, then narrows to Macgregor’s hometown of Hingham, Massachusetts and finally looks at the country at war. For each picture, Mrs. Roosevelt offers a brief, simple, to-the-point text reiterating the strengths of the American character and system, which will see the country through World War II.
(#4838)
Print Inquire
