Eleanor Roosevelt Contributes to Women's Olympic Fund

In this photograph, taken on April 10, 1939, First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt makes the inaugural contribution to the Women's Olympic Fund. The fund was created to help send track, swimming, and field teams to the 1940 Summer Olympic Games in Helsinki, Finland. In 1940, the Olympic Games were cancelled due to World War II. The Olympic Games did not resume until the 1948 Summer Olympics in London, England. Helsinki later hosted the 1951 Summer Olympics. Pictured in this photograph from left to right: unidentified child; Mrs. Roosevelt; Delores "Dee" Boeckmann, former Olympic runner and National Chairman of the Women's Track and Field Committee; Hjalmar Johan Fredrik Procopé, Finnish Minister of Foreign Affairs; and Lucille Brackett, a swimmer from Washington, D.C. The group stands on the balcony of the South Portico outside the Blue Room. A crowd of onlookers on the South Grounds and the Washington Monument are visible in the distance.