Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/879767
50 SAG-AFTRA | Summer/Fall 2017 | SAGAFTRA.org Snapshot by Valerie Yaros A surprising name appears on the list of 30 new applicants for membership in the American Federation of Radio Artists for the rst week of May Eleanor Roosevelt, wife of United States President Franklin Delano Roosevelt. hen Mrs. Roosevelt oined AFRA, she had been rst lady for seven years and was actually a radio veteran. er rst broadcast was as early as April , , when station GS ew ork listed a Talk by Mrs. Franklin Roosevelt on its schedule for that afternoon. On the morning of Sunday, Dec. , , the Pearl arbor .S. naval base on ahu, awaii, was attacked by the air eet of the mperial apanese avy, killing , avy, Marine and Army personnel, and civilians. The rst Roosevelt that anxious radio audiences heard from about the attack was not the president, but Eleanor, whose regular weekly C news radio program, Over Our Coffee Cups, went on as scheduled. She told listeners have a boy at sea on a destroyer, for all know he may be on his way to the Pacic. Two of my children are in coast cities on the Pacic. Many of you all over the country have boys in the services who will now be called upon to go into action. ou have friends and families in what has suddenly become a danger one. ou cannot escape anxiety. ou cannot escape a clutch of fear at your heart and yet hope that the certainty of what we have to meet will make you rise above these fears. e must go about our daily business more determined than ever to do the ordinary things as well as we can and when we nd a way to do anything more in our communities to help others, to build morale, to give a feeling of security, we must do it. hatever is asked of us, am sure we can accomplish it. e are the free and unconuerable people of the nited States of America. The following day, in an address to Congress, broadcast nationwide over all radio networks, President Roosevelt asked for a declaration of war against apan and declared Dec. , a date which will live in infamy. ELEANOR ROOSEVELT: FIRST LADY, HUMANITARIAN … BROADCASTER First lady Eleanor Roosevelt at the microphone in 1937. Her radio series, Talks by Mrs. Roosevelt, aired for 15 minutes each Wednesday evening from April 21 – July 14, 1937, over the NBC Blue Network, generally broadcast from Washington, D.C. Snapshot by Valerie Yaros For more on Mrs. Roosevelt's broadcasting career, see the Eleanor Roosevelt Papers Project at George Washington University's website at erpapers.columbian.gwu.edu/radio-and-television. SAG-AFTRA SPECIAL COLLECTIONS