Lorena A. Hickok (1893–1968)
Author of The Story of Helen Keller
About the Author
Works by Lorena A. Hickok
Empty Without You: The Intimate Letters of Eleanor Roosevelt and Lorena Hickok (1998) 154 copies, 1 review
The Touch of Magic- The Story of My Life. (Two Books in one volume, by separate authors) (2018) 62 copies
Helen and the Stranger 4 copies
Tagged
Common Knowledge
- Birthdate
- 1893-03-07
- Date of death
- 1968-05-01
- Gender
- female
- Occupations
- journalist
biographer
public relations executive - Organizations
- Associated Press
- Relationships
- Roosevelt, Eleanor (friend)
- Short biography
- Lorena Alice Hickok had a troubled childhood and youth. She failed out of college in her first year, and got a job at The Battle Creek Evening News covering such minor stories such as train arrivals and departures. She then went to work for the Milwaukee Sentinel as the society editor, and moved on to the city beat when she proved to be a talented interviewer. She gained a wide readership for her pieces on celebrities such as Lillian Russell, Ignac Paderewski, and Nellie Melba. Lorena first met Eleanor Roosevelt in 1928 when assigned to interview her by the Associated Press. When FDR ran for president in 1932, Lorena Hickok convinced her editors to allow her to cover Eleanor Roosevelt during the campaign and the four-month transition period between FDR's election and inauguration. The two women spent a lot of time talking and began a long, close friendship. Eleanor Roosevelt, who had had a loveless childhood herself, was especially sensitive to others with similar backgrounds. Lorena Hickok joined the Roosevelts every Sunday night for dinner but maintained her home in New York City. Some biographers believe Lorena was in love with Eleanor but others have warned historians not to be misled. It is known that Eleanor and "Hick" wrote lengthy, affectionate letters to each other every day. For three years, Lorena worked on public relations for the 1939 New York World's Fair. In 1940, with help from the First Lady, Lorena became executive secretary of the Women's Division of the Democratic National Committee, working on that year's presidential campaign. From January 1941 until shortly after FDR's fourth inauguration in 1945, she lived at the White House. Lorena's diabetes worsened in 1945, and she was forced to leave her position with the DNC. She wrote several books, including Ladies of Courage (1954) with Eleanor, followed by The Story of Franklin D. Roosevelt (1956), The Story of Helen Keller (1958), and The Story of Eleanor Roosevelt (1959), among others. Her health continued to decline, and she moved to a cottage on the Roosevelt estate at Hyde Park, New York, where she died in 1968.
- Nationality
- USA
- Birthplace
- East Troy, Wisconsin, USA
- Places of residence
- Washington, D.C., USA
Hyde Park, New York, USA
New York, New York, USA - Associated Place (for map)
- USA
Members
Reviews
Harry Hopkins was FDR's Federal Emergency Relief Administrator in 1933. Hopkins sent journalists around the country to write "reports" about the conditions they found. Hopkins sent Lorena Hickok traveling as a "confidential investigator" throughout the U.S. to report on "the state of tha nation."
Far from objective, Hockok saw the people of Tennessee, for example, as dirty, ignorant, and incapable of working their own land; they were "helpless victims" of nature who needed to be bailed out show more by Big Government.
This is from a letter from Hickok to Hopkins in 1934: "What to do with these people makes a nice little problem. Whether to move them off--and if so, where to put them--or, with careful and authoritative supervision they might eke out a living, leave them there and take a chance on their being absorbed in the industries that should be attracted down here by the cheap power furnished by TVA."
Hopkins had an agenda, and he used Hickok and others to meet that agenda: to prove that the country was in a "God-awful mess" and take the land from people in Appalachia in order to create dams for the Tennessee Valley Authority. If people were too "dirty and ignorant" to farm their own land, then it was no problem--it was even a good thing--for the government to take it from them.
Jim Powell in his book, FDR's Folly, has another take on the TVA, believing that it actually depressed the Tennessee economy. It's a complicated issue, with arguments for and against on both sides, but to say that Hickok was sent out to write "objective" reports is simply wrong.
One example that I know of personally: the TVA drowned the entire town of Butler, Tennessee. People whose families had lived in the area for generation after generation were given no choice but to sell their land to the government--at bargain (for the government) prices. They had to dig up the graves of their ancestors and move them to higher ground--or know that they would be left at the bottom of the new reservoir. I talked to a woman in the area in 2005 who was a child at the time. Speaking of her grandmother and others in the community, she said, "The government killed our old people." What the government did to these people was heartbreaking; Hickok's "reports" were in many cases simply telling the feds what they wanted to hear.
That being said, Lorena's letters to Harry Hopkins make fascinating reading. show less
Far from objective, Hockok saw the people of Tennessee, for example, as dirty, ignorant, and incapable of working their own land; they were "helpless victims" of nature who needed to be bailed out show more by Big Government.
This is from a letter from Hickok to Hopkins in 1934: "What to do with these people makes a nice little problem. Whether to move them off--and if so, where to put them--or, with careful and authoritative supervision they might eke out a living, leave them there and take a chance on their being absorbed in the industries that should be attracted down here by the cheap power furnished by TVA."
Hopkins had an agenda, and he used Hickok and others to meet that agenda: to prove that the country was in a "God-awful mess" and take the land from people in Appalachia in order to create dams for the Tennessee Valley Authority. If people were too "dirty and ignorant" to farm their own land, then it was no problem--it was even a good thing--for the government to take it from them.
Jim Powell in his book, FDR's Folly, has another take on the TVA, believing that it actually depressed the Tennessee economy. It's a complicated issue, with arguments for and against on both sides, but to say that Hickok was sent out to write "objective" reports is simply wrong.
One example that I know of personally: the TVA drowned the entire town of Butler, Tennessee. People whose families had lived in the area for generation after generation were given no choice but to sell their land to the government--at bargain (for the government) prices. They had to dig up the graves of their ancestors and move them to higher ground--or know that they would be left at the bottom of the new reservoir. I talked to a woman in the area in 2005 who was a child at the time. Speaking of her grandmother and others in the community, she said, "The government killed our old people." What the government did to these people was heartbreaking; Hickok's "reports" were in many cases simply telling the feds what they wanted to hear.
That being said, Lorena's letters to Harry Hopkins make fascinating reading. show less
I read this story as a girl and found it fascinating. Helen Keller lives in a dark work, unable to communicate with anyone because she was born blind and deaf. But then Anne Sullivan comes to teach her, and despite the fact that Helen has become a wild child, Miss Sullivan eventually teaches her to read, to write, and to live a full life. This is an amazing story!
This was the first biography I ever read of Helen Keller when I was a child. It has remained one of my favorites. It is written well, and easy for a young adult to understand, while maintaining the story of the remarkable Helen.
Helen Keller was an amazing woman, and this book is great - especially for kids - to learn about her life. I learned how to finger spell because of this book as well.
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- Works
- 17
- Members
- 1,415
- Popularity
- #18,178
- Rating
- 4.1
- Reviews
- 9
- ISBNs
- 25
- Languages
- 1