Gloria Jean Watkins (born September 25, 1952), better known by her pen name bell hooks (intentionally uncapitalized),] is an American author, feminist, and social activist. She took her nom de plume from her maternal great-grandmother Bell Blair Hooks. Her writing has focused on the interconnectivity of race, capitalism, and gender and what she describes as their ability to produce and perpetuate systems of oppression and class domination. She has published over thirty books and numerous scholarly and mainstream articles, appeared in several documentary films and participated in various public lectures. Primarily through a postmodern perspective, hooks has addressed race, class, and gender in education, art, history, sexuality, mass media and feminism. She was my first introduction to the intersection of race/gender/sexuality. What a wake up call she was to me, a very young white girl from a very small town. I found her fascinating. She was born on September 25, 1952 in Hopkinsville, Kentucky. She grew up in a working class family with five sisters and one brother. Her father, Veodis Watkins, was a custodian and her mother, Rosa Bell Watkins, was a homemaker. Throughout her childhood, she was an avid reader. Her early education took place in racially segregated public schools, and she wrote of great adversities when making the transition to an integrated school, where teachers and students were predominantly white. She graduated from Hopkinsville High School in Hopkinsville, Kentucky, earned her B.A. in English from Stanford University in 1973, and earned her M.A. in English from the University of Wisconsin–Madison in 1976. In 1983, after several years of teaching and writing, she completed her doctorate in the literature department from the University of California, Santa Cruz with a dissertation on author Toni Morrison. She also taught at Yale. Her teaching career began in 1976 as an English professor and senior lecturer in Ethnic Studies at the University of Southern California. During her three years there, Golemics (Los Angeles) released her first published work, a chapbook of poems titled "And There We Wept" (1978), written under her pen name, "bell hooks". She adopted her grandmother's name as her pen name because her grandmother "was known for her snappy and bold tongue, which [she] greatly admired." She put the name in lowercase letters "to distinguish [herself] from her grandmother." Her name's unconventional lowercasing signifies what is most important in her works: the "substance of books, not who I am." She taught at several post-secondary institutions in the early 1980s, including the University of California, Santa Cruz and San Francisco State University. South End Press (Boston) published her first major work, Ain’t I a Woman?: Black Women and Feminism in 1981, though it was written years earlier, while she was an undergraduate student. In the decades since its publication, Ain't I a Woman? has gained widespread recognition as an influential contribution to postmodern feminist thought. Ain’t I a Woman? examines several recurring themes in her later work: the historical impact of sexism and racism on black women, devaluation of black womanhood, media roles and portrayal, the education system, the idea of a white-supremacist-capitalist-patriarchy, the marginalization of black women, and the disregard for issues of race and class within feminism. Since the publication of Ain’t I a Woman?, she has become eminent as a leftist and postmodern political thinker and cultural critic. She targets and appeals to a broad audience by presenting her work in a variety of media using various writing and speaking styles. As well as having written books, she has published in numerous scholarly and mainstream magazines, lectures at widely accessible venues, and appears in various documentaries. She is frequently cited by feminists as having provided the best solution to the difficulty of defining something as diverse as "feminism", addressing the problem that if feminism can mean everything, it means nothing. She asserts an answer to the question "what is feminism?" that she says is "rooted in neither fear nor fantasy... 'Feminism is a movement to end sexism, sexist exploitation and oppression'". She has published more than 30 books, ranging in topics from black men, patriarchy and masculinity to self-help, engaged pedagogy to personal memoirs, and sexuality (in regards to feminism and politics of aesthetic/visual culture). A prevalent theme in her most recent writing is the community and communion, the ability of loving communities to overcome race, class, and gender inequalities. In three conventional books and four children's books, she suggests that communication and literacy (the ability to read, write, and think critically) are crucial to developing healthy communities and relationships that are not marred by race, class, or gender inequalities. She has held positions as Professor of African and African-American Studies and English at Yale University, Associate Professor of Women’s Studies and American Literature at Oberlin College in Oberlin, Ohio, and as Distinguished Lecturer of English Literature at the City College of New York. A commencement speech hooks gave in 2002 at Southwestern University was considered controversial. Eschewing the congratulatory mode of traditional commencement speeches, she spoke against what she saw as government-sanctioned violence and oppression, and admonished students who she believed went along with such practices. Many in the audience booed the speech, though "several graduates passed over the provost to shake her hand or give her a hug." In 2004 she joined forces with Berea College in Berea, Kentucky as Distinguished Professor in Residence, where she participated in a weekly feminist discussion group, "Monday Night Feminism", a luncheon lecture series, "Peanut Butter and Gender" and a seminar, "Building Beloved Community: The Practice of Impartial Love".Her most recent book is entitled belonging: a culture of place, which includes a very candid interview with author Wendell Berry as well as a discussion of her move back to Kentucky.In her book Teaching to Transgress: Education as the Practice of Freedom, hooks investigated the classroom as a source of constraint but also a potential source of liberation. She argued that teachers' use of control and power over students dulls the students' enthusiasm and teaches obedience to authority, "confin[ing] each pupil to a rote, assembly-line approach to learning.”She advocated that universities encourage students and teachers to transgress, and sought ways to use collaboration to make learning more relaxing and exciting. She described teaching as “a catalyst that calls everyone to become more and more engaged”.She has attracted a measure of criticism, often from conservative writers. Peter Schweizer has accused her of hypocrisy in sexual politics. Writer David Horowitz has specifically objected to a passage in the first chapter of Killing Rage, in which hooks states that she is "sitting beside an anonymous white male that [she] long[s] to murder" because he was complicit in a boarding pass misunderstanding that resulted in the harassment of her black, female friend. Of these kind of "irrational, violent impulses," hooks states, "My irrational impulse to want to kill people who bore me or whose ideas are not very complex clearly has to do with an exaggerated response to situations where I feel powerless."
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Sometimes, lucky information just drops right into your lap. In my case, it dropped right into my twitter feed. The NY Times posted an article on Camila Vallejo today, and her story seemed perfect for today's post. Part of the reason it was perfect is because it's a story from Chile, a South American country, and because today is Maundy Thursday. Some might say today is a day of fearlessness. Camila Vallejo has been described as fearless more than once. It seems right to highlight her today. Here's a link to the NY Times article: http://t.co/ruxYl8yI Here's a little more information about her: Camila Antonia Amaranta Vallejo Dowling (Spanish: [kaˈmila baˈʝexo]) (vah-yay-ho) (born 28 April 1988 in Santiago) is a Chilean geography undergraduate student and member of the Chilean Communist Youth. As president of the University of Chile Student Federation (Fech) and main spokesperson of the Confederation of Chilean Students (Confech), she led a movement for better access to quality education at the end of April 2011 — which continues as of April 2012.Vallejo is the daughter of Reinaldo Vallejo and Mariela Dowling, both historic members of Chilean Communist Party and activists in the Chilean resistance during the military dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet.Vallejo lived her childhood between the communes of Macul and La Florida, and she studied in Colegio Raimapu, a Co-Ed private school in La Florida.In 2006, Vallejo entered the University of Chile to study geography. There, she started forming ties with leftist students and getting involved in politics, which led her to join the Chilean Communist Youth the next year. She was counselor of Fech in 2008, and was chosen as its president in November 2010, becoming only the second woman to hold this post in the 105-year history of the student union.“We believe that the key to a successful student movement is to reposition the Federation to that of Vanguard at the national level; to return to interweave social networks with the people, the workers, with social organizations, the trade unions, and with the youth who did not make it into the University - who were left kicking stones. In other words, we speak of returning our vision to the array of social problems that surround the University, with which we are intimately tied to and committed to." —Camila Vallejo, Fech President speech (November 2010)On 7 December 2011, Vallejo was defeated in her bid for re-election by Gabriel Boric, a Law School graduate. In October 2011 she was elected to the Central Committee of the Communist Youth of Chile at its XIII National Congress.Vallejo has acquired public attention as a leading spokesperson and leader of the 2011 student protests in Chile, alongside other student leaders: Giorgio Jackson from the Catholic University of Chile Student Federation and Camilo Ballesteros from the University of Santiago, Chile Student Federation.In August 2011, the Supreme Court of Chile ordered police protection for Vallejo after she received death threats.RecognitionVallejo has been labeled by the media as the most important and influential Communist personality of the 21st century in Chile, and also as the symbolic successor of Gladys Marín. Vallejo has been praised publicly by several entertainers. In September 2011, Calle 13 traveled to Chile to support the student movement, and in a concert they invited some students and members of the Confech, including Vallejo. In August 2011 Vallejo was displayed on the front page of the German weekly Die Zeit and in December of that year she was overwhelmingly chosen "Person of the Year" in an online poll by readers of The Guardian, which four months earlier had published a piece on her. Vallejo has been included by magazines in such lists as "100 People Who Mattered" by Time Magazine on its December 2011 "Time Person of the Year" annual issue, and in "150 Fearless Women" by Newsweek in March 2012. Geraldine Hoff Doyle(July 31, 1924 – December 26, 2010) is believed to be the real-life model for the World War II era "We Can Do It!" poster, later thought to be an embodiment of the iconic World War II character Rosie the Riveter. Geraldine Hoff was born in Inkster, Michigan. Her father Cornelious was an electrical contractor who died of pneumonia when she was 10 years old. Her mother, Augusta, was a composer stricken with scoliosis. After graduating from high school in Ann Arbor, Michigan, in 1942 Hoff found work as a metal presser in the American Broach & Machine Co. of Ann Arbor. (As men started enlisting and being drafted into military service for World War II, women began to support the war effort by taking on roles, including factory work, that were formerly considered "male only.") Because she was a cello player, Hoff feared a hand injury from the metal pressing machines and soon left the factory.[1] During the brief time she worked there a United Press International photographer took a picture of her. That image -- re-imagined by graphic artist J. Howard Miller while working for the Westinghouse Company's War Production Coordinating Committee -- may have become the basis for the poster Miller created during a Westinghouse anti-absenteeism and anti-strike campaign. Soon after quitting work as a metal presser, Geraldine Hoff met and married dentist Leo Doyle, to whom she remained married until his death in early 2010. Because the "We Can Do It!" poster was created for an internal Westinghouse project, it did not become widely known until the 1980s, when it began to be used by advocates of women's equality in the workplace. Doyle did not know she may have been the model for "We Can Do It!" until 1984, when she came across an article in Modern Maturity magazine which linked a photo of her to the poster, which she had not seen before.The Rosie the Riveter character, based on Doyle and other World War II-era women who worked in factories to support the war effort, remains an icon and appeared on a 1999 postage stamp as part of a World War II series produced by the U.S. Postal Service. Geraldine Hoff Doyle died on December 26, 2010 in Lansing, Michigan, as a result of complications from arthritis, aged 86. She was survived by her 5 children, 18 grandchildren and 25 great-grandchildren. Every day, I find surprises in these stories. Even though sometimes I just cut and paste from website information, I have to say there is a wealth of information in between the lines. Today's historical woman is Anne Sullivan. She learned to sign at Perkins School for the Blind. Interesting why? Because I used to live blocks from there. Cool. But an even more cool fact that I found is how Anne Sullivan and Helen Keller were lifelong companions, 49 years worth of lifelong companions. That Anne Sullivan did marry, but her husband moved in with Anne and Helen, and the marriage lasted less than ten years. After Anne and her husband separated, it was her husband who wrote and asked for money. Because of the interesting tidbits I'm finding, I have launched a more in-depth study, and included with that will be at least one (and probably more) weeks devoted to specific causes/periods in time, or other such categorizations. My first weekly focus will be on the women of the American suffrage movement. Stay tuned! For now, here's some more information on Anne Sullivan: Sullivan was born on April 14, 1866 in Feeding Hills, Massachusetts. According to her baptismal certificate, her full name at birth was Johanna Mansfield Sullivan; however, she was called Anne from the time she was born. Her parents' names were Thomas Sullivan and Alice Cloesy Sullivan and they were Irish immigrants who couldn't read and had little money. In 1874 her mother, Alice, died, probably of tuberculosis; after which Anne was sent to an almshouse, that today is Tewksbury Hospital in Tewksbury, Massachusetts. She was at Tewksbury for four years. In 1880, Anne, who was blind from untreated trachoma, was sent to the Perkins School for the Blind. Anne had a brother, Jimmie (James), born in 1869, a sister Ellen born in 1867 and a sister, Mary. Michael Anaganos, director of the Institute, then located in South Boston, was approached to suggest a teacher for the Keller's deafblind daughter. He asked Anne Sullivan, a former student, herself visually impaired and only 20 years old, to become Helen's instructor. It was the beginning of a 49-year relationship, Sullivan evolving into governess and then eventual companion. Anne Sullivan arrived at Keller's house in March 1887, and immediately began to teach Helen to communicate by spelling words into her hand, beginning with "d-o-l-l" for the doll that she had brought Keller as a present. Keller was frustrated, at first, because she did not understand that every object had a word uniquely identifying it. In fact, when Sullivan was trying to teach Keller the word for "mug", Keller became so frustrated she broke the doll. Keller's big breakthrough in communication came the next month, when she realized that the motions her teacher was making on the palm of her hand, while running cool water over her other hand, symbolized the idea of "water"; she then nearly exhausted Sullivan demanding the names of all the other familiar objects in her world. As lifelong companions Sullivan and Keller continually lived, worked, and traveled together. Helen Keller with Anne Sullivan vacationing at Cape Cod in July 1888 On May 3, 1905, Anne Sullivan married a Harvard University instructor and literary critic, John Albert Macy (1877–1932), who had helped Keller with her publications. Macy moved in with Keller and Sullivan, and the three lived together. However, within a few years, Macy's and Sullivan's marriage began to disintegrate. By 1914 they had separated, though they never officially divorced. In the early years after their separation, John wrote and asked for money. In the 1920 census, Helen Keller was 38 years old and listed as head of her household in the Queens, New York Census. Anne is listed as living with her, age 52, listed as a private teacher of Helen. John Macy is also listed as living with them (entered as a Lodger, writer/author, age 44). As the years progressed Macy appears to have faded from Sullivan's life. Sullivan never remarried. In 1932, Helen and Anne were each awarded honorary fellowships from the Educational Institute of Scotland. They also were awarded honorary degrees from Temple University. By 1935, Sullivan became completely blind just one year before her death on October 20, 1936 in Forest Hills, New York. She died at age 70 after a coma, with Keller holding her hand. When Keller herself died in 1968, her ashes were placed in the Washington National Cathedral next to Anne's. Anne Sullivan is an integral character in The Miracle Worker, by William Gibson, originally produced for television, where she was portrayed by Teresa Wright. The play then moved to Broadway, and was later produced as a 1962 feature film. Both the Broadway play and 1962 film featured Anne Bancroft in the Sullivan role. Patty Duke—who played Helen Keller in the 1962 film version—later played Sullivan in a 1979 television remake. Alison Elliott recently portrayed her in a 2000 television movie. Alison Pill played Sullivan on Broadway in the 2010 revival of The Miracle Worker, with Abigail Breslin as Keller. Both Anne Bancroft and Patty Duke won Academy Awards for Best Actress and Best Supporting Actress for their roles as Sullivan and Keller in the 1962 film version. Anne Sullivan's first month with Helen Keller is chronicled in the novel, Miss Spitfire: Reaching Helen Keller, by Sarah Miller. The award-winning first-person narrative imagines Annie's point of view and emotional landscape as she struggles to break through to her pupil. " A woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction." -Virginia Woolf Well, that explains it all, now doesn't it? Now I know why I am not a published author! Woolf began writing professionally in 1900, initially for the Times Literary Supplement with a journalistic piece about Haworth, home of the Brontë family. Her first novel, The Voyage Out, was published in 1915 by her half-brother's imprint, Gerald Duckworth and Company Ltd.Woolf went on to publish novels and essays as a public intellectual to both critical and popular success. Much of her work was self-published through the Hogarth Press. She has been hailed as one of the greatest novelists of the twentieth century and one of the foremost modernists. Woolf is considered one of the greatest innovators in the English language. In her works she experimented with stream-of-consciousness and the underlying psychological as well as emotional motives of characters. Woolf's reputation declined sharply after World War II, but her eminence was re-established with the surge of Feminist criticism in the 1970s.Woolf's work was criticised for epitomising the narrow world of the upper-middle class English intelligentsia. Some critics judged it to be lacking in universality and depth, without the power to communicate anything of emotional or ethical relevance to the disillusioned common reader, weary of the 1920s aesthetes. She was also criticised by some as an anti-Semite, despite her being happily married to a Jewish man. This anti-semitism is drawn from the fact that she often wrote of Jewish characters in stereotypical archetypes and generalizations, including describing some of her Jewish characters as physically repulsive and dirty. The overwhelming and rising 1920s and 30s anti-Semitism possibly influenced Virginia Woolf. She wrote in her diary: "I do not like the Jewish voice; I do not like the Jewish laugh." However, in a 1930 letter to the composer Ethel Smyth, quoted in Nigel Nicolson's biography Virginia Woolf, she recollects her boasts of Leonard's Jewishness confirming her snobbish tendencies, "How I hated marrying a Jew- What a snob I was, for they have immense vitality."In another letter to her dear friend Ethel Smyth, Virginia gives a scathing denunciation of Christianity, seeing it as self-righteous "egotism" and stating "my Jew has more religion in one toe nail—more human love, in one hair." Virginia and her husband Leonard Woolf actually hated and feared 1930s fascism with its anti-semitism knowing they were on Hitler's blacklist. Her 1938 book Three Guineas was an indictment of fascism.After completing the manuscript of her last (posthumously published) novel, Between the Acts, Woolf fell into a depression similar to that which she had earlier experienced. The onset of World War II, the destruction of her London home during the Blitz, and the cool reception given to her biography of her late friend Roger Fry all worsened her condition until she was unable to work. On 28 March 1941, Woolf put on her overcoat, filled its pockets with stones, and walked into the River Ouse near her home and drowned herself. Woolf's body was not found until 18 April 1941. Her husband buried her cremated remains under an elm in the garden of Monk's House, their home in Rodmell, Sussex. In her last note to her husband she wrote:“Dearest, I feel certain that I am going mad again. I feel we can't go through another of those terrible times. And I shan't recover this time. I begin to hear voices, and I can't concentrate. So I am doing what seems the best thing to do. You have given me the greatest possible happiness. You have been in every way all that anyone could be. I don't think two people could have been happier 'til this terrible disease came. I can't fight any longer. I know that I am spoiling your life, that without me you could work. And you will I know. You see I can't even write this properly. I can't read. What I want to say is I owe all the happiness of my life to you. You have been entirely patient with me and incredibly good. I want to say that – everybody knows it. If anybody could have saved me it would have been you. Everything has gone from me but the certainty of your goodness. I can't go on spoiling your life any longer. I don't think two people could have been happier than we have been. Recently, studies of Virginia Woolf have focused on feminist and lesbian themes in her work, such as in the 1997 collection of critical essays, Virginia Woolf: Lesbian Readings, edited by Eileen Barrett and Patricia Cramer. Controversially, Louise A. DeSalvo reads most of Woolf's life and career through the lens of the incestuous sexual abuse Woolf suffered as a young woman in her 1989 book Virginia Woolf: The Impact of Childhood Sexual Abuse on her Life and Work.Woolf's fiction is also studied for its insight into shell shock, war, class and modern British society. Her best-known nonfiction works, A Room of One's Own (1929) and Three Guineas (1938), examine the difficulties female writers and intellectuals face because men hold disproportionate legal and economic power and the future of women in education and society. In The Second Sex (1949), Simone de Beauvoir counts, of all women who ever lived, only three female writers—Emily Brontë, Woolf and "sometimes" Katherine Mansfield—who have explored "the given".Irene Coates's book Who's Afraid of Leonard Woolf: A Case for the Sanity of Virginia Woolf holds that Leonard Woolf's treatment of his wife encouraged her ill health and ultimately was responsible for her death. This is not accepted by Leonard's family but is extensively researched and fills in some of the gaps in the traditional account of Virginia Woolf's life. Victoria Glendinning's book Leonard Woolf: A Biography, which is even more extensively researched and supported by contemporaneous writings, argues that Leonard Woolf was not only supportive of his wife but enabled her to live as long as she did by providing her with the life and atmosphere she needed to live and write. Virginia's own diaries support this view of the Woolfs' marriage.Though at least one biography of Virginia Woolf appeared in her lifetime, the first authoritative study of her life was published in 1972 by her nephew Quentin Bell.In 1992, Thomas Caramagno published the book The Flight of the Mind: Virginia Woolf's Art and Manic-Depressive Illness. Hermione Lee's 1996 biography Virginia Woolf provides a thorough and authoritative examination of Woolf's life and work. In 2001 Louise DeSalvo and Mitchell A. Leaska edited The Letters of Vita Sackville-West and Virginia Woolf. Julia Briggs's Virginia Woolf: An Inner Life, published in 2005, is the most recent examination of Woolf's life. It focuses on Woolf's writing, including her novels and her commentary on the creative process, to illuminate her life. Thomas Szasz's book My Madness Saved Me: The Madness and Marriage of Virginia Woolf was published in 2006.It is clear that Virginia Woolf still seems to be a subject for many historians, readers, and admirers. Then, of course, there's the Indigo Girls song tribute to her. Who needs to say more Lorena Hickok, popularly known as "Hick", was born in East Troy in Walworth County, Wisconsin. During childhood, Hickok experienced a troubled family life, characterized by abuse, unemployment, and repeated moves. She left home at the age of fourteen to work as a maid until her mother's cousin, Ella Ellis, took her in. While living with Ellis, Hickok finished high school and enrolled at Lawrence College in Appleton, Wisconsin. Hickok never adjusted to college and dropped out after one year. She was then hired to cover train arrivals and departures and write personal interest stories at The Battle Creek Evening News. To attempt to follow in the footsteps of her role model, novelist Edna Ferber, she eventually joined the Milwaukee Sentinel as its society editor, but moved on to the city beat, where she developed a knack as an interviewer. Hickok then worked in Minneapolis and New York, but was unsuccessful in such a big city and was fired after just a month. She returned to Minneapolis to work for the Minneapolis Tribune and enrolled at the University of Minnesota, but ended up leaving upon being forced to live in a women's dormitory. She stayed with the Minneapolis Tribune, where she was given opportunities unusual for a female reporter. She had a by-line and was the paper's chief reporter, covering politics and football and preparing editorials. She left the Minneapolis Tribune in 1926. After a period of travel, and ill health, she went to New York. After working for "The Mirror" for about a year, Hickok landed a job with the Associated Press in 1928, where she became one of the wire service's most valued correspondents. She reported in a prominent way on such huge events as the Lindbergh kidnapping. Her specialty was campaign reporting, often sharing campaign trails with her male colleagues. Hickok first met Eleanor Roosevelt in the summer of 1928, at the Democratic National Committee headquarters in New York City. In 1932, she convinced her editors to allow her to cover Eleanor Roosevelt during the presidential campaign and for the four month interregnum period. Through that experience, she and Mrs. Roosevelt developed a close relationship. Because she felt she could no longer be objective in covering the Roosevelts, Hickok left the Associated Press in 1933. Eleanor Roosevelt then helped her obtain the position as a Chief Investigator for the Federal Emergency Relief Administration (FERA), where she conducted some fact-finding missions. During this time, she also provided public relations advice to the first lady. She is credited with pushing Roosevelt to write her own newspaper column, "My Day", and to hold weekly press conferences specifically for female journalists. During her time with FERA, Hickok developed a dislike of reporters. In one report to Hopkins in 1934, she wrote, “Believe me, the next state administrator who lets out any publicity on me is going to get his head cracked...” Hickok had also vented to Hopkins's secretary, Kathryn Godwin, about how she was “fed-up with publicity”. She said, “I want to kick every reporter I see. Which is a state for me to get into, since I’ll probably be back in business myself after I get through with this.” Two weeks after writing the letter to Hopkins, Hickok saw an article in Time Magazine, which referred to her in some not–so-ladylike terms. Referring to that article, Hickok had said to the Godwin, “I suppose I am a ‘rotund lady with a husky voice’ and ‘baggy clothes,’ [Time's words], but honestly don’t believe my manner is ‘peremptory.’” Hickok went on to say that, if they felt that way about her then, “Why the Hell CAN’T they leave me alone? In a letter (February, 1934) to Godwin, Hickok admitted that the Time article had upset her: “… that damned article in Time Magazine, has made something of a wreck out of me … as I came in, they handed me, with beaming smiles, a copy of Time. I read the thing and wanted to curse until the air was blue." March through July 1934 was marked by highs and lows in Hickok’s life. In several letters between the women, Eleanor spoke of “longing to kiss and hold” Lorena in her arms. Yet, in another letter from Eleanor, in May 1934, Eleanor implied that she did not like the instability of Lorena’s life, and found it discomforting, “saying that she was tired of the ‘bad things’ that Lorena’s temperamental nature did to her (her being Hickok).” Eleanor even told Hickok that she thought Hickok was in a mental and emotional depression. Hickok became the executive secretary of the Women's Division of the Democratic National Committee (DNC) in 1940, and from early January, 1941 until shortly after FDR's fourth inauguration in 1945, she lived at the White House. During her time there, Hickok's nominal address was at the Mayflower Hotel in DC, where she met most people. Also during this time, she formed an intense friendship with the Honorable Marion Janet Harron, a United States Tax Court judge who was ten years younger than her and almost the only person to visit her at the White House. When Hickok's diabetes worsened in 1945, she was forced to leave her position with the DNC. Two years later, Eleanor Roosevelt helped her obtain a position with the New York State Democratic Committee. When Hickok's health continued to decline to the point where she became frail and partially blind, she moved to Hyde Park to be closer to Mrs. Roosevelt. She lived in a cottage on the Roosevelt estate, where she died in 1968. Hickok wrote several books, co-authoring "Ladies of Courage" with Eleanor Roosevelt in 1954, and following that with "The Story of Franklin D. Roosevelt," (1956), "The Story of Hellen Keller" (1958), "The Story of Eleanor Roosevelt" (1959), and several more. Hickok willed her personal papers to the FDR Library, in Hyde Park, New York, part of the US National Archives. Her donation was contained in 18 filing boxes that, according to the provisions of her will, were to be sealed until 10 years after her death. In early May, 1978, Doris Faber, as part of research for a projected short biography of Eleanor Roosevelt, became perhaps the first person outside the National Archives to open these boxes, and was astounded to discover that they contained 2336 letters from Mrs. Roosevelt to Lorena, most of them dated in the 1930s, and continuing right up to Mrs. Roosevelt's death in 1962. A key passage from just one early 12-page handwritten missive to Lorena from Eleanor sheds light on their relationship: Goodnight, dear one. I want to put my arms around you and kiss you at the corner of your mouth. And in a little more than a week now — I shall! It is not universally accepted by historians that the two were romantically connected. Hickok's papers remain at the Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Museum, where they are available to the public. This is your new blog post. Click here and start typing, or drag in elements from the top bar.
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