History Happy Hour: Conversations Between a First Lady and a University Dean: An Untold Story

In her June 1, 1944 entry for her newspaper column, “My Day,” First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt shared her itinerary from the previous day. She had attended and spoke at a good-bye dinner for Howard Washington Thurman, Dean of Howard University (Washington, DC), as he ventured to San Francisco to start the first multicultural and interreligious community in America. What appears to be a simple one sentence acknowledgement in Roosevelt’s popular column is a clue to layers of conversations and shared correspondences sprinkled throughout the decades following that dinner. Shively T. J. Smith traces the correspondence chain between Roosevelt and Thurman during and after her White House years that span Thurman’s deanship careers at Howard University and Boston University. Walter Earl Fluker, editor of the Howard Washington Thurman Papers and Dean’s Professor at Emory University, will moderate the episode.

History Happy Hour is a biweekly virtual program hosted by the White House Historical Association. Join us as experts weigh in on a variety of historical topics, share their insights, answer audience questions, and enjoy presidential-inspired libations.

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