57 pages • 1 hour read
J. B. West, Mary Lynn KotzUpstairs at the White House: My Life with the First Ladies
Nonfiction | Autobiography / Memoir | Adult | Published in 1973A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Part 1Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Part 1: “The Roosevelts”
Part 1, Chapter 1 Summary
West began working in the White House on March 1, 1941, under the supervision of the chief usher, Howell G. Crim. Explaining that the ushers run the White House, Crim assigned West the jobs of handling Eleanor Roosevelt’s travel arrangements and mail as well as assisting in the operations of the White House. Crim was “horrified at anything he considered a breach of the highest standards in manners and morals” (11). West was initially overwhelmed with the activity around him as people ran in and out of the usher’s office, and the phone rang constantly. One of the jobs of the ushers was to announce guests to the president and first lady.
On West’s first day, he met Eleanor and was struck by her pace. She ran from place to place and talked quickly. Later that month, she was to have an awkward meeting with the Japanese ambassador. Crim was advised to interrupt and terminate the meeting after 15 minutes. On West’s second day, he saw the president, and he was surprised at the president’s paralysis. The White House staff took extraordinary steps to hide the president’s paralysis from the public. Always, West noted, the Roosevelt White House was filled with people, two kinds of people: the president’s and Eleanor’s (14).
Part 1, Chapter 2 Summary
The Roosevelts invited so many guests to the White House as to make it seem like a “Grand Hotel” (15). Eleanor never dined alone but instead shared meals with working guests or those involved in her many projects. The president attended her Sunday night salons when he was feeling well. There were two permanent guests with whom Eleanor had a close relationship. Lorena Hickok, a former reporter, was a close friend of Eleanor’s, and Joseph Lash was a young man in whom Eleanor took an interest and treated as a confidant. She was closer to Lash than her grown children, Anna, James, Franklin, Elliott, and John. She saw her children by appointment. One night, the staff had moved Lash to another room and Eleanor knocked and entered his old room to find an undressed gentleman there. She instructed the staff never to move a guest without her knowledge again.
The Roosevelts were collectors of both things and people. However, they had a separate relationship and were rarely alone together. Eleanor provided intelligence to her husband and acted as his eyes and ears in her travels. West observes that they were equals. President Roosevelt spent much time with his personal advisor, Harry Hopkins, who lived at the White House with his young daughter. Two valets provided great assistance to the president as well. In good weather, the president would take drives with his dog Fala and meet with Mrs. Rutherford, a friend. For exercise, he swam in the newly installed pool at the White House.
Handling Eleanor’s travel arrangements was practically a full-time job, given her activity and the many changes made at the last minute. Once Eleanor gave an order, she assumed it would be carried out. She allocated approximately 15 to 20 minutes to each visitor and enjoyed the ritual of tea. A teetotaler, Eleanor was physically active and went on walks and horseback rides by herself. Crim disapproved of her informality but, of course, remained silent on the matter. Eleanor fought for the rights of Black Americans, urging her husband to integrate the troops and inviting Blacks to the White House. For that, she drew the ire of her mother-in-law, who died in September 1941. Eleanor’s brother died later that same month. When the United States entered World War II, Eleanor dedicated herself to civil defense, defined broadly to include “nutrition, housing, medical care, education, and recreation for all Americans” (29).
Part 1, Chapter 3 Summary
After Pearl Harbor was attacked on December 7, 1941, there was an atmosphere of fear in the White House. Blackout curtains were put in use, tours were canceled, and food rationing was put in place. The Roosevelts’ sons and Lash all served in the military. Eleanor traveled to places where they were stationed and brought back news. At the White House, Eleanor invited wounded servicemen to tea and provided souvenirs. Crim had to plead with her not to give away silver spoons from the White House, as he was responsible for every item in the White House. She agreed.
During the war, Winston Churchill secretly visited the White House several times. He requested a Scotch with breakfast and was either dressed in a jumpsuit or was stark naked. President Roosevelt was taken aback on visiting his room when he found him naked and waited for him to dress. The map room, with the war details, was moved to the ground floor, and a new bomb shelter was put in place. With his travels not publicized, the president could move around more freely. In 1943, both Soviet Foreign Minister Molotov and Madame Chiang Kai-shek from China visited the White House. The former brought a gun with him, prompting the ushers to call the Secret Service, while the latter was a most demanding guest who tested Eleanor’s patience.
Hopkins, Roosevelt’s personal advisor, married in 1943, as did West to Zella. Eleanor wrote a letter to Hopkins’s wife demonstrating that Eleanor was the “only mistress of the White House” (37). In January 1944, President Roosevelt had a bad case of influenza. Eleanor took charge of the planning for the fourth presidential inauguration, which saw “by far the greatest assemblage of people ever to gather at the White House” (43). The president gave a brief but eloquent speech. His daughter Anna moved into the White House to care for her ill father and traveled with him to the famous meeting at Yalta with Churchill and Joseph Stalin. Following that meeting, the president went to Georgia to recuperate. When the president returned to the White House for D-Day in June, he looked thin and ill.
Part 1 Analysis
This first section immerses the reader in the White House of President Franklin Roosevelt and First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt and provides the first of many impressions of the important building at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. In the section, the White House is likened to a “Grand Hotel,” a bustling place characterized by public and private meetings and a great many comings and goings. Hospitality was offered both to heads of state and to regular Americans by the president and the first lady. Indeed, Eleanor is depicted as the public face of the presidency, both in her travels outside Washington and in her role as hostess, diplomat, and planner. Hers is the first portrayal of The Contribution of First Ladies to the Presidency.
On his first day working in the White House on March 1, 1941, West was overwhelmed with how busy the office of the ushers was. The phone was constantly ringing with requests. The efforts of the White House staff were especially apparent and comprehensive in hiding President Roosevelt’s paralysis from polio. For example, at receptions, the gardeners placed large plants at one end of the room with a special seat placed between them. To observers, it looked as though the president was standing (14). Photographs were not permitted at certain times, and aides helped him enter and exit rooms. The staff additionally intervened upon request to terminate tense appointments, as they did for Eleanor when she met with the Japanese ambassador. In describing these actions and so many others, West shows The Important Role of Behind-the-Scenes Workers.
In this section, West offers his first characterization of a 20th-century first lady. Astonished at Eleanor’s energy level, West describes her as in perpetual motion and always busy. She had her own pet projects and invited countless guests to the White House to work on them. An advocate of civil rights, Eleanor not only invited Blacks to the White House but also attempted to persuade her husband to integrate the troops, which were segregated at this time. Although she did not prevail upon him to do that, West describes the influence she had on the president. Every night, when she was not traveling, she would report to the president in private. She served as his source of trusted intelligence about feelings in the country, as he was limited in his ability to travel at this time. Her advice to the president, as well as her own political activity, demonstrated her significant contribution to the presidency and the role of the first lady.
Throughout the book, West shares his unique observations not only of the first ladies and presidents individually but also of how they functioned as couples. West explains that Eleanor and Franklin Roosevelt had a separate relationship but treated each other as equals. Given that the Roosevelts had been in the White House since 1933 or 8 years by the time West was employed there, he might not have seen as clearly how the presidency affected their personal and family life. Certainly, Eleanor was extremely busy in the role, and the couple constantly had guests. Eleanor’s request to have private time with her husband’s body following his death was a testament to her feelings for him. As West notes, she was a complex personality—extremely devoted to causes for the working class, for example—yet she did not see the workers in the White House as her equals, which was consistent with her upper-class roots. She was formal with her children but close to a young man who lived in the White House. Her upper-class upbringing might have more to do with her family relations than living in the White House did, but surely, the responsibilities that went along with that played a role in her private life.
For President Roosevelt, one area of concern regarding The Impact of Public Scrutiny on the First Family was his health, specifically how polio had affected his mobility. In West’s discussion of how the staff took steps to shield President Roosevelt’s paralysis from public and press view, he acknowledges the possible negative effects of the scrutiny of the president’s health. West notes, “As I watched him in his wheelchair, that vitality was gone” (13), later adding that he felt uncomfortable towering over the president in the elevator. His discomfort—even while he respects the man holding the office—speaks to why minimizing this aspect of public scrutiny was such a priority for the administration.
