Advance Praise for She Was One of Us
“This is an inspiring book and should be read by women of all ages and of all stations in life. (Men: You can learn from it too!)”
-PETE SEEGER
“I am very proud to say that Eleanor Roosevelt was a long-standing member of the labor movement, the Newspaper Guild, AFL-CIO. In She Was One of Us, Brigid O’Farrell brings to light not only Eleanor Roosevelt’s significant work with unions but also the labor movement’s contributions to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Our labor history is enriched and our efforts to secure workers’ rights are enhanced by reading Eleanor Roosevelt’s inspiring words and following her call to action close to home and around the world. She was, indeed, one of us.”
-RICHARD L. TRUMKA, President, AFL-CIO
“She Was One of Us is profoundly researched and powerfully written. Brigid O’Farrell has gifted us with a timely, galvanizing, much-needed study of Eleanor Roosevelt’s democratic vision and union participation. This book well serves O’Farrell’s hope for a new generation of activism to ensure workers’ rights, human rights, and dignity for all. Filled with surprises-new and amazing details-it enables us to imagine a global future of full employment, equitable wages, and worker health free of toxic industrial poisons. Everybody concerned about a just and livable world will rush to buy, read, and assign this splendid, important book.”
-BLANCHE WIESEN COOK, Distinguished Professor, John Jay College and the Graduate Center, CUNY, and author of Eleanor Roosevelt
“Eleanor Roosevelt found the American labor movement a crucial ally in her efforts to advance democracy and human rights. In She Was One of Us, Brigid O’Farrell tells us why. Along the way, we also get an entertaining and fresh slice of American labor history and even-handed treatments of such controversial subjects as the cold war divide in the labor movement and the debates over the Equal Rights Amendment.She Was One of Us has many fine features and deserves a wide audience.”
-DOROTHY SUE COBBLE, Rutgers University, author of The Other Women’s Movement
“Want to make your workplace safer? To have a say in setting your wages and benefits? To join a union? Read this book. She Was One of Us shows how First Ladv Eleanor Roosevelt translated her ideas ahout social and economic justice into action. She understood that workers’ rights are human rights and she championed the men and women who go to work each day in steel mills, restaurants, coal mines, garment factories, hospitals, offices, and schools. Brigid O’Farrell has written a book that provides inspiration and practical guidance for all of us who carryon the legacy of making Eleanor Roosevelt’s vision of workplace democracy a reality.”
-KIMBERLY FREEMAN BROWN, Executive Director, American Rights at Work
“Nowhere was Eleanor Roosevelt’s democratic vision more evident than in her lifelong commitment to the American lahor movement. Thanks to Brigid O’Farrell’s fine hook, Roosevelt’s legacy serves as a challenge and an inspiration to new generations in their quest for economic justice for all citizens.”
SUSAN WARE, editor of Notable American Women: Completing the Twentieth Century
Brigid O'Farrell 