college classrooms, tours of historic sites and see our schedule of upcoming programs. that is c-span.org/history. >> now on the presidency, we continue with the film in the holdings of the franklin d. roosevelt presidential library marking the 80th anniversary this february. we'll see eleanor roosevelt's 1958 interview with mccall's magazine on the occasion of her 74th birthday. she looks through family photographs and tells the stories behind them. this is 15 minutes. >> we come as a political sentiment, most people agree that eleanor roosevelt is an outstanding woman of our time. mccall's is proud to have a member of the family through the regular monthly column of questions and answers, if you ask me. in the current issue in the

celebration of her birthday we have eleanor roosevelt her life in pictures. we thought you would enjoy hearing her own comments about some of the photographs running in the current mccall's. she has become a pinup girl at mccall's through this photograph used on the title page of the story. >> i'm flattered and pleased that you have taken this picture, which was taken a year or two after i came back from school in england and to come out in the traditional way in new york. the fashions seem to funny today with the high neck and the gold beads around my neck and above all the hair, the pompa dore and i have hair below my waist so it was hard to get it screwed up on to have of my head. but a great pompa dore makes you look quite different. all i could say about the

fashions today is that at least we've progressed and are more comfortable. >> in the next picture with your father, you seem to have a very nice relationship with him. he meant a great deal to you, didn't he? >> my father meant tremendous amount. i adored him all of the days of my childhood and did for many years. >> did he have a particular nickname he called you. >> yes. he called me little nell after the nell dickinson's story and i always liked that. and i'm sitting on my father's knee a very badly dressed little girl, right after my mother's death so i had a black dress with a white front but i adored my father and i'm sure i was very happy. >> the next picture is quite a lovely picture of your mother. what is your most vivid memory of her? >> my mother was very beautiful and i was a very ugly little girl. i she she always wondered why

her daughter had to be so ugly and she would occasionally say that in the whole family there were really no ugly ducklings and i was the exception. but she was a very lovely person with a great sense of duty and responsibility. and so i think adored my mother, but rather like a distant and beautiful thing that i couldn't possibly get to. >> in your mother's day, did women have a knowledge of childcare and child guidance as they do today? >> not in the modern way. but my mother had a great deal of knowledge of what she wanted for my education. she was really responsible to the fact that i was sent to school at 15, even though she had been dead many years.

i remember very well i'd come home from europe and this is on my husband's uncle, mr. warren delanuor and it is a dutch name and that was up near barry town new york and they were playing games and i didn't know how to play any games. i was a very unathletic person and i could watch but i think my husband was showing off. oh, this one, this one was on the beach, the beach on an island across from where our home was and it looks straight across the bay to spain. the water was terribly cold and we decided to go wading. the beach was peddle but there was little sand on that beach but i could see that we were on

the pebbles and i doubt very much if either of us enjoyed it because only a second or two and you will feel completely blue and frozen. this is my wedding picture. i had a lovely bouquet of littlys of the valley and i've loved them ever since. i think this dress looks very old-fashioned today. i never tried to save it. i naturally took off much of the lace which was lace my grandmother had worn on her wedding dress. but the satin, i went on using. and the train, which was a long train, i kept a piece of for many years in a trunk. it is still i think somewhere, yellow and worn.

>> you were married, i understand, on saint patrick's day. who gave you away. >> my uncle and we were married on saint patrick's day because he had to come up for the parade. he was president at the time. >> did franklin roosevelt had political ambitions at this time? >> i imagine he toyed with it because his uncle inspired so many young men and whether he had distinct ambitions yet i'm not sure. >> do you know what franklin thought about theodore roosevelt's politics? >> he had great admiration for uncle ted. he inspired a great many young people of the day. particularly with his theory of the strenuous life and the service that people owed their country. oh, this brings back memories of our first trip abroad.

we can't have a trip directly after our wedding because my husband was finishing his law school work for the year. and so we waited until the summer. and then we went abroad and one of the places that i had always loved was venice. and here we are in a gandola and i remember the old ganda lear who sang songs beautifully of which my husband joined and he was a delightful romantic figure and i loved the gondolas. here we are at the camp. my husband and our first child anna. we had many troubles with anna because i knew nothing about the care of babies. and she had some difficulties. but she was a very nice child. >> it is become a roosevelt

trademark. most of us -- [ inaudible ]. >> and this one if i remember right, it is called bessy which is the name my scotch terrier is called and we buried bessy and later franklin called his terriers after the murray of tyler hill was a border, i suppose you call him today a border from scotland. suddenly this picture shows a family that has grown enormously. here we are in the second home that we lived in in washington. and my husband was the assistant secretary of the navy here are all five children. anna, jaden standing up and elliott on one side and franklin

sitting on my husband's knee and johnny sitting on mine. i really always liked this picture. it was taken on the top floor of the house in the sort of sunroom which we used as a dormitory for the boys. and i think it is a very nice picture. >> here you and frankly are out walking in the snow after the polio attack. was he actually able to walk on ice? >> this is perhaps not quite truthful because it looks as though my husband and i are coming out of church, we're walking together in the snow to the car. but as a matter of fact, he would have had to have to actually walk. he would stand with me and a cane and his braces. but to walk, he would have had to have a sturdier arm than mine

so i think we must have just stood there for a minute so they could have a picture of us both. >> and this, of course, is election night 1932. >> this is a picture that i remember not completely happily. it was the reading -- mr. hoover's telegram when he conceded franklin's election. i felt the responsibility that lay on my husband in the heart of depression made this not exactly the happiest moment in our lives. but my husband was always an optimist and i think for him it was a happy moment. oh, this is one that i hardly

think a gentleman would like to see. i'd almost forgotten it had ever been taken. i'm sitting next to mr. westbrook taylor quite chum illy and quite close together and we seem to be having a very cheerful time. same surprised that he ever let himself go in that way. >> mrs. roosevelt, you've been strongly criticized and often. how do you react to criticism? >> i don't really mind criticism except from people i know. and then if i think it is really truthful criticism, i think about it very carefully. here comes a picture that must have made me very angry when it was originally taken because the one thing that i've always been opposed to is photographs of people kissing each other. whether it was my husband or my

children or my friends, i just didn't like it. and here i was only being met by my husband probably when i came back from england during the war. the queen had asked me to see to the work of the women over there and while we were there, i went over on a commercial plane, while we were there our troops landed. among them my son and his -- and they landed in north africa and suddenly mr. churchill and our ambassador said we have to go back on a commercial plane and the germans will find out and she'll endanger everybody else on the plane. so at last i was sent back and one of our returning bombers with a crew that had delivered a bomb. the heat went off and we were cold all the way over the most difficult and unpleasant trip,

however, i enjoyed it. and i think this is probably taken certainly without my knowledge as i got into the car on the return from that trip. but evidently my husband has happy to see me when i got back. >> as a newspaper woman, you must have known many things that you couldn't talk or write about. this cartoon appeared when the president was deciding whether or not he would return for a third term. >> there were many cartoons. they depicted many things. i'm afraid i did see things which were not usual for the lady in the white house. and this shows me sitting up in bed with a typewriter and i'm supposed to be writing "my day." and the caption reads, that it would make such a nice hoot if you'd only tell me, franklin. now, of course, there were many of those. but i loved this one.

it was very amusing because franklin never told me anything. and now we come to the very last picture which is with one of my -- well my first great grandson. and i think the picture looks like both of us were having a very good time. you know, i now have ten great grandchildren. the last one has just been born, a little boy, to the oldest daughter, chandler roosevelt. and ten great grandchildren is quite a number even though i have 19 grandchildren. >> mrs. roosevelt, if you had your ten great grandchildren around you, what advice would you give them in growing up.

>> i think i would say that they have a greater opportunity because they're born in a less rigid mold. they have more opportunity to shape their lives. they

you're watching merion history tv, all weekend, every weekend, on cspan3. the national archives in washington, d.c., home of the declaration of independence and the u.s. constitution is closed to the public because of the coronavirus pandemic. we talked with the archivist about the pandemic's impact on the archive's work. >> the national archives in washington, d.c., home of the deck la ration of independence and the u.s. instituticonstitut closed to the public due u to the pandemic. we talked to the archivist about the pandemic. >> david is the akooifi