Mary Pos, the self-proclaimed first female travel journalist from the Netherlands, wrote to Eleanor Roosevelt on 3 December 1937, angling for an invitation to the White House for a book she was writing about her impressions of America. Using her personalized Dutch stationery, she had produced the letter on her travel typewriter while staying at a hotel in Chicago. In broken English, and with no less than ten corrections on the one page, she presented herself as an accomplished and internationally known writer and lecturer with an extensive social and professional network of people and carrying significant letters of recommendation. Princess Juliana had granted her a rare interview, she stated, because âshe knows about my trips, always alone, many times in diffcult [sic] circumstances,â after which the writer elaborated on her visits to the slums in Paris and London.1
Pos was a clever networker and may have mentioned the slums because she was informed about Rooseveltâs tours of slum areas, as well as her involvement in settlement housework in the New York City slums when she was young.2 Another tactic to persuade Roosevelt to invite her was her declaration that through her writings she wished to give the poor âa little reliefâ and âbe able to do something for others by my work.â The Dutch journalist then added: âI know what you are doing for other people too and specially [sic] therefore you can understand how anxious I am to meet you one time in my life.â3 Emphasizing the resemblance of their personal and social ambitions, the Dutch writer from the small Dutch town of Zaandam desperately hoped she could have a personal appointment with the world-famous First Lady. The meeting would, we can imply, offer her inspiration and information, an experience to refer back to when lecturing and writing her travel books but also an encounter to add to her list of meetings with high-ranking public figures who could open doors elsewhere. The long, imploring letter in typescript shows a short and decisive note at the top, written in pencil and directed at Stephen Early, Franklin Delano Rooseveltâs (FDRâs) press secretary: âMr Early, can she come to press conferenceâ [sic].4
Earlier on, in November, Mary Pos had made a first attempt to meet with the President and his wife, but FDR had been ill and Mrs. Roosevelt was out of town. Prudence Shannon, the secretary to Early, had met her at that time and, when she received the new request to arrange for a meeting, sent a warning note to Malvina Thompson Scheider, private secretary and personal aide to First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt: âIt is my personal opinion that you will have to âkeep an eyeâ on her if she attends the conferenceâbecause she strikes me as the kind of person who, if given an inch, will take a mile. This, just for your information.â5
Shannon was right: after Pos was informed she could attend a press conference, but would not be allowed to have a personal interview with the First Lady, she wrote again, asking for a private rendezvous. In order to support her request, she included documentation about her work and offered to present Eleanor Roosevelt with âthe very simple, but real, Dutch pair of wooden shoes in miniature (one can keep them on his hand) which I brought with me from my country.â6 In the end, it was arranged that Pos would attend both the presidential press conference on Tuesday, 21 December 1937, and the womenâs press conference the day after, followed by a short interview with the First Lady, together with a Finnish journalist.
Still, Pos wanted more than even the mile: the day after the womenâs press conference, she instructed the Harris and Ewing News Service to send photo portraits to FDR and his wife to be autographed.7 When, on 3 January 1938, she had not received the photos back, perhaps failing to take into consideration the Christmas holidays, the Dutch journalist sent a reminder to the First Lady. She pressed her to sign the photo, dedicate it to her, and return it that very same week, as she would travel back to Europe within a few days. In addition, she invited Mrs. Roosevelt to read a New York Times article about herself that, she boasted, a well-known American had referred to on the radio. The clipping, which she included in the envelope as both reading assignment and trophy, was entitled âHollander Finds Us Too Serious: Mary Pos, Writer, Wonders at Few Laughing Faces in midst of Holiday Brightness. Roosevelts the âGayest.ââ It expressed, Pos states, âmy feelings for you.â8 Indeed, the piece quotes Pos as saying: âI have met many important women in the world, but I have never met one so naturally brilliant. She never hesitates in giving an answer, she never speaks a careless word for which she couldnât take full responsibility. She would make an excellent ambassador for this country anywhere abroad.â9 Posâ reference to the responsible way in which Mrs. Roosevelt answered questions from journalists is ironic: years later, Pos would publicly push Roosevelt to speak about a political issue she did not wish to discuss.10 Eventually, Mrs. Roosevelt did sign the picture and had her secretary send it back to Pos, but the president, Pos was informed, was too busy. On the Harris and Ewing News Service request was written âExplain to Pos â Doesnât do it.â11
Mary Posâ frantic attempts to reach out to Eleanor Roosevelt, as well as her gushing about her in the winter of 1937, are in sharp contrast with her assessment 12 years later. Having met the First Lady in the summer of 1950 during her European tour, she refers to her in her diary as âan unsympathetic business woman.â12 This chapter examines that change of appraisal. In addition, it shows how Posâ narratives of her encounters with Eleanor Roosevelt expose the professional and psychological forces at work in the transnational and gendered arena of journalism in the late 1930s and early 1950s. It especially looks at the way in which Pos, Roosevelt, and other women positioned themselves during Rooseveltâs womenâs only press conferences. Finally, it investigates potential correlations between Rooseveltâs and Posâ ideas on womenâs rights and intercultural understanding.13
Popular Travel Journalist and Speaker
Mary Pos (1904â1987) was a world traveler, writer, and lecturer. Conversing with Eleanor Roosevelt, on 22 December 1937, she referred to herself as a âworld citizen,â and although she did not explicitly use the term âcitizen diplomat,â she usually presented herself as such to Roosevelt and others.14 Inspired at an early age by stories told to her by her father and uncle, both missionaries, she had developed the ambition to play a role in the advancement of intercultural understanding. Her travel accounts in thousands of articles and more than 20 books, as well as the hundreds of lectures all over the Netherlands and abroad, were meant to contribute to crucial connections between peoples and countries. To support her plan, she had worked hard to construct an extensive professional and personal network of notables, diplomats, and businessmen; relatives and acquaintances at home and abroad; and sponsors and admirers who would financially or otherwise support her self-presentation as a well-known, well-read, and well-traveled professional. Posâ traveling was sponsored by organizations as diverse as KLM, Heineken beer, Wybert cough drops, and the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs. She could be an extremely demanding person and oftentimes came across as headstrong, uncompromising, and self-important, as is evident in her correspondence with the White House. Her letters as well as diaries show how she struggled with feelings of insecurity in both the professional and personal spheres, which caused severe mental depressions.
Pos â mission was to travel and meet, write, and lecture, both building connections and earning her own money which she needed being a single woman. Her seven journeys to the US were successful in all these regards. She explored the country and its people by staying in hotels, at the Young Womenâs Christian Association (YWCA), and with acquaintances. She also presented lectures about Europe and the Netherlands at womenâs clubs, churches, the YWCA, and other organizations, and she was interviewed by US n...