The First Ladies

Name: The First Ladies
Author: Marie Benedict

by Marie Benedict

Genre

Historical Fiction

Year

2023

Pages

401

Contents

Overview

The First Ladies traces the unlikely, world‑shaping friendship between educator Mary McLeod Bethune and First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt. Beginning with a fraught 1927 luncheon and unfolding through the Depression and World War II, the novel follows two women from different worlds who choose each other as partners in purpose: to expand opportunity, dignity, and safety for Black Americans and for women.

Mary, a visionary school founder and national club leader, meets entrenched racism with strategy, coalition building, and unshakable self‑possession. Eleanor, chafing at the limits of her role, learns to wield public attention, press access, and proximity to power to challenge the status quo. As their bond deepens, they navigate political headwinds, party loyalties, and personal costs while pushing for jobs, appointments, education, and federal protection from racial terror.

At its heart, this is a story about courageous allyship and the long game of change—how private trust can unlock public action, how symbolism and policy reinforce each other, and how two “first ladies” transform the possibilities of their time without surrendering their convictions.

Plot Summary ⚠️ Spoilers

The story opens in 1927 with Mary McLeod Bethune stepping into a rarified New York drawing room and meeting the silence reserved for someone deemed out of place. Sara Delano Roosevelt greets her, but Mary remains largely isolated until her host, Eleanor Roosevelt, confronts a roomful of clubwomen who refuse to dine with a Black guest. Eleanor takes her place at Mary’s table, and the two begin a conversation that sets their course: Mary reframes racism as the racists’ burden, names education as her life’s work, and invites Eleanor into the realities Mary lives every day. A shared plan—someday to attend a concert by Roland Hayes—becomes their early shorthand for solidarity.

Parallel scenes sketch Eleanor’s private resolve. After surviving Franklin Roosevelt’s affair with Lucy Mercer and refashioning her marriage, Eleanor builds an independent life at Val‑Kill with Nancy Cook and Marion Dickerman. Politics pulls her back when Al Smith drafts Franklin to nominate him and later to run for governor. Mary, meanwhile, consolidates influence in Daytona—opening space for Black‑owned businesses, investing to counter discrimination, and nurturing her grandson—while weighing loyalty to Republicans against results. Election night 1928 delivers mixed news: Hoover wins the presidency; Franklin wins New York; Mary begins to see the usefulness of Eleanor’s access.

Hoover’s White House invites Mary to a child‑welfare conference but offers only polite inaction. In Washington, Mary reads of white women organizing against lynching and decides Eleanor must be an ally in that fight. Eleanor, already chafing at ceremonial limits, forces the Mayflower Hotel to seat Mary for tea and listens as Mary shares the anti‑lynching call that “silence is guilt.” Their pact: speak and act.

The 1932 campaign tests them. Eleanor, thinking strategically, asks Mary to help Franklin court Black voters. Mary is offended by the presumption—no one chooses for her what is best for her community—and insists on honest reckoning about Southern Democrats and the Klan. They climb that “wall” together, replacing assumption with candor. When Franklin wins, Eleanor reimagines the First Lady role: women‑only press conferences, relentless travel and writing, and an open door to Mary.

They spend a marathon day in 1933 mapping a four‑point plan for Black inclusion in the New Deal: emergency relief, job creation with explicit apportionment, support for the Costigan–Wagner anti‑lynching bill, and appointing Black advisers. Eleanor warns of Southern resistance; Mary insists prosperity will not erase discrimination. While Harold Ickes creates an office for “Negro economic status,” its white appointee, Clark Foreman, confirms Mary’s fear of paternalism. Mary shifts their energy: press the President on lynching and embed Black advisers inside agencies.

Mary brings Eleanor photos from the lynching of George Armwood. Eleanor confronts Franklin; despite his sympathy, he refuses to back Costigan–Wagner, arguing he cannot risk the New Deal coalition. Blocked legislatively, the women pivot to public conscience. Eleanor joins the NAACP, attends a searing anti‑lynching art exhibit, and uses visibility as leverage. In parallel, Mary organizes federal appointees into a coordinated bloc and—through Eleanor, Aubrey Williams, and Josephine Roche—joins the National Youth Administration. After a forceful presentation at Hyde Park, Franklin decides to create an NYA division for Negro youth and to ask Mary to run it. Her appointment, quietly celebrated at Val‑Kill, turns their blueprint into operating authority.

By 1936, Mary has doubled NYA funding for Black youth, seeded state leadership posts, and founded the National Council of Negro Women. She and Eleanor stage public acts—an onstage gloved handshake, a front‑window lunch—to normalize interracial partnership while battling gatekeepers like Steve Woodburn, a presidential aide who tries to manage Eleanor and block Mary’s access. Mary’s “Blue Book” of policy fixes earns Franklin’s praise, but Woodburn vows obstruction.

Setbacks become catalysts. At Marian Anderson’s 1939 concert, engineered after the DAR barred Constitution Hall, Harold Ickes declares that genius “draws no color line” as an integrated audience fills the Lincoln Memorial; Eleanor attends in secret to keep focus on Anderson. A 1937 inauguration slight—an usher refusing Mary her reserved seat—prompts Eleanor to leave the platform to correct it. In Birmingham, when Bull Connor demands segregated seating, Eleanor measures the aisle and plants her chair dead center. Each gesture pairs symbolism with pressure.

As war nears, Mary’s “Black Cabinet” frays; she negotiates directly with Franklin for military inclusion: pilot and combat training, expanded units, officer access, and higher enlistments. A damaging press release, apparently shaped by Woodburn, affirms opportunity but codifies segregation. When Woodburn later assaults a Black NYPD officer, Eleanor forces a public apology, a correction, and commitments to appoint Black officers—proof that visibility can extract concessions.

The threatened 1941 March on Washington splits Mary’s council. Robert C. Weaver and Walter White back A. Philip Randolph; Mary fears violent backlash but cannot abandon her base. Eleanor, seeking a safer path, hustles Philip, Walter, and Robert into the White House, and Franklin agrees to an order banning defense‑industry discrimination. From Campobello, Eleanor presses him to sign Executive Order 8802 and create the FEPC, averting the march and establishing a precedent on employment.

War darkens the landscape. Eleanor mourns losses, endures backlash, and opposes mass incarceration under EO 9066. She crashes into melancholy until Tommy summons Mary, who names Eleanor’s despair and stays until resolve returns. The FBI then targets Mary with an unfounded “custodial detention” listing; Eleanor vows to confront the investigation and protects Mary’s standing.

In 1943, they aim their partnership at Tuskegee. With trained Black pilots still sidelined, Eleanor and Mary arrive with trusted women reporters. Eleanor insists the chief instructor, Charles “Chief” Anderson, lead their tour and, over a base officer’s objections, asks him to take her up. The point is explicit: if it is safe for the First Lady to fly with a Black pilot, it is safe to send these pilots into combat. Mary, too ill to join the flight, orchestrates the moment and watches it lift from a runway paved by years of shared labor.

Across sixteen turbulent years, the two women test tactics—legislation, appointments, public statements, private leverage, images designed to change minds—and endure costs in reputation, health, and friendship. The novel’s arc belongs to both: to Mary’s disciplined, community‑anchored power and to Eleanor’s transformation into an activist First Lady who learns to spend her access. Together, they turn a chance luncheon into a durable alliance that expands the country’s moral horizon.

Characters

Mary McLeod Bethune

Educator and founder of Bethune‑Cookman College who becomes a national civil rights strategist. She forges a working alliance with Eleanor Roosevelt to secure relief, jobs, anti‑lynching advocacy, and federal appointments, later directing the NYA’s Division of Negro Affairs and organizing the Federal Council of Negro Affairs.
Eleanor Roosevelt

First Lady who transforms a ceremonial role into an activist platform. She partners with Mary to challenge segregation, convene the press, press for federal inclusion, and stage public acts that shift opinion, even as she navigates personal upheaval and political constraints.
Franklin D. Roosevelt

Governor of New York turned president whose New Deal aims collide with Southern Democratic resistance. He cultivates Mary’s input, creates a Negro youth division in the NYA, and signs EO 8802 under pressure, while refusing to endorse federal anti‑lynching legislation.
Steve Woodburn

Presidential aide and gatekeeper who repeatedly tries to manage Eleanor and block Mary. He inserts damaging language that affirms segregation, attempts to cancel appearances, and is forced into public apology and policy corrections after his misconduct.
Walter White

NAACP leader whose investigations and lobbying anchor the anti‑lynching campaign. He partners with Mary and Eleanor, meets the president, and helps negotiate the path to Executive Order 8802.
Harold Ickes

Secretary of the Interior who backs civil rights initiatives. He establishes a Negro‑affairs office and later introduces Marian Anderson at the Lincoln Memorial, aligning federal authority with public conscience.
Lorena "Hick" Hickok

Associated Press reporter who becomes Eleanor’s confidante and intimate partner. She encourages women‑only press conferences and, later, steps away from reporting as their bond reshapes Eleanor’s independence.
Louis Howe

Franklin’s longtime adviser and moral prod who nurtures Eleanor’s political confidence. His decline and death create a vacuum that empowers gatekeepers and heightens Eleanor’s urgency.
Robert L. Vann

Pittsburgh Courier editor who helps engineer a Black political realignment. He pushes the Roosevelts on appointments and joins high‑level negotiations that advance employment equity.
Robert C. Weaver

Young economist and appointee who reports concrete gains and later challenges Mary to embrace more confrontational tactics. He becomes a key voice within the Federal Council and the 1941 negotiations.
Eugene Kinckle Jones

Veteran organizer and federal appointee who presses for access and results. He helps craft public pressure strategies as Mary consolidates a coordinated advisory bloc.
William "Bill" Hastie

Legal scholar and War Department adviser who symbolizes incremental progress. He works to improve conditions around segregated training, including at Tuskegee.
Clark Foreman

White progressive appointed special adviser on the economic status of Black Americans. His selection provokes Mary’s criticism of paternalism even as Eleanor argues for pragmatic access.
Aubrey Williams

Executive director of the National Youth Administration who welcomes Mary into federal youth policy. He sets inclusion goals and provides the platform for Mary’s national leadership.
Josephine Roche

Assistant Treasury Secretary and NYA cochair who champions Mary after hearing her speak. She helps build the coalition that leads to Mary’s appointment and early NYA gains.
Mordecai Johnson

Howard University president who serves on the NYA advisory group with Mary. He advances support for Negro colleges within New Deal youth programs.
Sara Delano Roosevelt

FDR’s formidable mother whose social authority helps stage crucial encounters. She cohosts the tea that forces a White House meeting on lynching and publicly supports Eleanor’s stance.
Earl Miller

Eleanor’s protective security chief and trusted friend. He facilitates her independence—including solo travel—and shields her during public confrontations and high‑risk appearances.
Nancy "Nan" Cook

Member of Eleanor’s Val‑Kill circle who offers companionship and political savvy. Her partnership provides emotional ballast as Eleanor redefines her public role.
Marion Dickerman

Educator and Val‑Kill partner whose closeness roots Eleanor’s refuge outside Springwood. Her presence marks the personal costs and supports of Eleanor’s transformation.
A. Philip Randolph

Labor leader who plans a March on Washington to force wartime inclusion. His leverage, combined with Mary and Eleanor’s access, helps secure Executive Order 8802 and the FEPC.
Marian Anderson

Celebrated contralto barred by the DAR, whose Lincoln Memorial concert becomes a national rebuke of segregation. The event showcases Mary and Eleanor’s capacity to pair symbolism with policy.
Charles "Chief" Anderson

Tuskegee’s chief flight instructor who takes Eleanor aloft. The flight becomes a public argument for deploying Black combat pilots.
Jessie Daniel Ames

Texas activist who organizes white women against lynching. Her stance helps crystallize Mary and Eleanor’s early anti‑lynching collaboration.
George Armwood

Maryland lynching victim whose photographs Eleanor shows the president. His case forces a reckoning on federal responsibility despite political costs.
Frederick D. Patterson

Tuskegee Institute leader who alerts Eleanor and Mary that trained Black pilots are sidelined. His reports spur the Tuskegee visit and media strategy.
General Watson

Presidential aide who must confirm military commitments. He becomes the hinge between promises to Mary and policy execution.
James Roosevelt

Eldest Roosevelt son who physically supports his father at public events. His presence underscores the family logistics behind Franklin’s carefully managed image.
Lucy Mercer

Franklin’s former lover whose affair reshapes Eleanor’s marriage. The betrayal catalyzes Eleanor’s pursuit of independent purpose and public work.
Harry Hopkins

New Deal administrator whose relief agencies intersect with Eleanor’s activism. He is a conduit for projects and a potential landing place for allies like Hick.

Themes

Marie Benedict’s The First Ladies is less a dual biography than a study in how private alliance becomes public architecture for change. Across these chapters, Mary McLeod Bethune and Eleanor Roosevelt test, refine, and ultimately weaponize friendship—turning parlors, porches, and press lines into laboratories of democracy.

Friendship as strategy, not sentiment. The relationship begins in awkward candor and social risk (the 1927 luncheon’s walkouts and Mary’s lesson that “racism belongs to the racists”) and matures through hard conversations at Marino’s (where Mary dismantles Eleanor’s assumptions) into a working partnership that stages moral spectacles: a handclasp on an NAACP stage and lunch in a front window (normalizing equality), the ruler‑measured defiance in Birmingham, and the hidden orchestration behind Marian Anderson’s Lincoln Memorial concert. Their bond becomes a blueprint for coalition politics.
The politics of presence: bodies, naming, and space. Dignity is enacted in small, relentless acts: Mary’s insistence on proper address from society matrons, train conductors, and federal aides; Eleanor’s insistence that Mary be seated where she belongs at the inauguration; the contested seating at the Mayflower and Birmingham. Even Franklin’s carefully staged “walking” reminds us that bodies—and where they are permitted—are policy before policy exists.
Incremental change versus immediacy. The book refuses easy victories. FDR won’t back anti‑lynching; words outpace law. Mary and Eleanor cultivate partial gains—appointments, relief jobs, military training paths—while movements demand more (the threatened March on Washington). Executive Order 8802 emerges from pressure, not providence, illustrating how insider pragmatism and outsider agitation must dance uneasily together. The recurring antagonist, Steve Woodburn, personifies institutional drag and the costs of compromise.
Maternal care as political ethic. Bethune’s “Black Roses,” her campus food shelves, and youth‑first NYA work translate the domestic sphere into public policy. Eleanor’s women‑only press conferences, kitchen‑table organizing, and her tending to Mary’s health and melancholy show care as governance. The novel reframes “women’s work” as nation‑work.
Media as a moral lever. From engineered “chance” meetings and women reporters in the hangar to the anti‑lynching art exhibit and the Lincoln Memorial broadcast, images do what stalled bills cannot: they rearrange the public imagination. Eleanor’s flight with Chief Anderson compresses a policy argument into a picture.

Together, these themes argue that progress is braided: courage and courtesy, staging and substance, friendship and friction. By novel’s end, “First Lady” describes not one woman but a shared office of conscience—Bethune and Roosevelt co‑authoring a wider American we.