From her privileged family background to her passion for social activism, this 1959 NBC program touches on a wide range of Eleanor Roosevelt’s memories, concerns, and goals. The former first lady points out that she took no interest in women’s suffrage until after she was married and because FDR favored it, but she also recalls how her husband did not hold her to any set patterns or object to her extended speaking tours. Acknowledging FDR’s unwillingness to support an anti-lynching bill, Roosevelt says her husband’s greatest accomplishments were the actions he took to overcome the Depression, restoring the self-confidence of the American people, and the continuation of atomic research. His biggest mistakes, in her view, were his attempt to reform the judicial system and his involvement in certain elections. (29 minutes)

In this A&E Special, Emmy Award–winning journalist Cokie Roberts—author of Founding Mothers: The Women Who Raised Our Nation—sheds light on female contributions to the American Revolution. Women from a diverse range of backgrounds are spotlighted, including First Lady Abigail Adams; Deborah Sampson, who fought in the Continental Army under her dead brother’s name; and Elizabeth Freeman, formerly a slave called Mum Bett who in suing for freedom set a precedent that led to the abolition of slavery in Massachusetts. Distributed by A&E Television Networks. (45 minutes)

The Margaret Fuller Legacy examines her Transcendental period as editor of the first literary magazine in America, The Dial, along with her professional and personal relationships with Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau. Additionally, the video brings to light her Conversations-the first successful women’s studies initiative in America—in Boston and at Brook Farm and her role as the first American female journalist and foreign reporter with the New-York Tribune. The program concludes at the Fuller monument at Mount Auburn Cemetery, Cambridge, Massachusetts. (40 minutes)

 

Hosted by Academy Award-winner Rita Moreno and Dee Wallace Stone, Women First & Foremostoffers shining examples of how generations of women have achieved their deserved place at the forefront of history.