A Rivalry of Cousins: Eleanor Roosevelt and Alice Roosevelt

[no_hypocrisy]

I've wondered why there was a rivalry between these women, especially as they were about the same age, raised together during Eleanor's visits to Sagamore Hill during her summers as a child. It seems Alice was terribly aggressive and critical of Eleanor as adults.

Now that I'm watching Ken Burns' "The Roosevelts", I think I have a theory. Both girls were vying for the love and attention of Theodore Roosevelt, Alice's father and Eleanor's uncle. And it appears that he was more demonstrable in his affections toward Eleanor while Alice was treated like the proverbial bastard at the family reunion. While it could be argued that TR was constrained from outwardly loving his first child by his second wife, Alice had to have noticed time and time again how she was ignored or pushed aside while Eleanor garnered unbridled love from her father. And Alice worshipped her father. To have such a dichotomy had to have been hell for her.

So she took out her hostilities on Eleanor by mocking her, criticizing her, assisting FDR carry on an affair with Eleanor's social secretary, and more.

I don't know if Eleanor ignored Alice's antics or addressed them in private or public.

[UnderDome]

1. I believe it was Alice who said ...

If you can't say something
nice about someone,
come and sit by me.

Alice and Dorothy Parker would have made great friends, I think, and they were only ten years apart in age.

I wonder if they knew each other.

[no_hypocrisy]

2. Welcome to DU!

And yes, that quote does belong to Alice.

[UnderDome]

3. Thank you for the welcome.

I am an ardent fan of American history of the 1920s. I've had about three hundred books either written at that time or about the period. Would love to see a discussion about those days. Some are still controversial to this day. I'm thinking Sacco and Vanzetti, the Red Scare, and on a lighter note, the enduring banter around the Algonquin Round Table.

[no_hypocrisy]

4. I've read several books about America during the Twenties and the Thirties.

I'm now concentrating on the years running up to the First World War and the Fifties. For some reason, the Fifties seem like a terrifying era besides Joe McCarthy.