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No Ordinary Time provides an intimate view of Franklin and Eleanor’s unique relationship, one more of a working partnership than a traditional marriage. Written in a somewhat gossipy style, at times resembling a society page column with its homey details, Goodwin digs deep into the character of the Roosevelt’s. Focusing on the rights of minorities, women and workers, she chronicles the dramatic social changes of the period.

Goodwin presents the attitudes and situations of people in 1940, which were far different from today. First, racism and discrimination were widely practiced and accepted; Jews were considered a devious race and blacks an incapable one. Woman were believed to be only suited for household chores and raising children. After Pearl Harbor anyone of Japanese descent was looked upon as the enemy. Second, to earn a decent living or live in a decent home was not considered a right and most people had neither. Third, isolationism was strong with no concept of America’s international responsibility. Before the attack on Pearl Harbor, the horrors the Axis powers were inflicting on the world might as well have taken place on a different planet. Few recognized the threat Germany and Japan would present to the U. S. if they succeeded. Eleanor cared deeply about the social problems, her husband about the threat from abroad, and together they addressed economic inequality.

Goodwin gives us some revealing statistics. Poverty in the U. S. in 1940 was widespread and living conditions for most were deplorable. 31% of homes did not have running water. 32% did not have an indoor toilet. 58% did not have central heat. Only 40% of adults had more than an 8th grade education. America’s military was ill prepared in 1940. The U. S. army ranked 18th in the world behind the Netherlands, which fell quickly to Germany. The U. S. could barely field 3 divisions while Germany had 136 well equipped divisions. The U. S. had 400 combat planes and 450 tanks, enough to last perhaps a day in the highly mechanized European war. The U. S. army still placed armor under the cavalry whose advocates still felt the horse more dependable than the machine.

But Goodwin’s emphasis is the personal lives of the Roosevelt’s and their impact on social change, not the war. Eleanor is shaped by a difficult childhood with an alcoholic father and a beautiful mother who overcompensates for Eleanor’s plainness. Both parents die while Eleanor is young. Her grandmother sends Eleanor to boarding school in London in 1899 where the 70 year old Mme Souvestre had a profound influence in developing Eleanor’s confidence.

Franklin’s father was born two years before Mme Souvestre in 1828 during the John Quincy Adams administration. It’s amazing to consider that the President who authorized the development of the atom bomb, first detonated a few months following FDR’s death, was raised by a father born before the electric telegraph or even steam railroads operated in America. He and Eleanor faced a far different world than that of their parents and mentors, yet miraculously they were up to the task.

Two major events shaped Franklin and Eleanor and their relationship. First was Franklin’s affair with Eleanor’s assistant, Lucy Mercer which ended any notion of traditional marriage and hurt Eleanor deeply but freed her to be her own person and to work on the social issues she cared so much about. The damaged relationship also helped mature Franklin, but it was Franklin’s crippling polio that gave him the confidence to work through difficulty with calm. Adversity created strength for both of them.

Eleanor became an outspoken advocate for civil rights. She constantly pressed FDR to take action, but he was reluctant since it was politically risky. Only when threatened by a 100,000 man march on Washington by black leaders did FDR do anything. However, it was largely the war itself that created the first opportunity for blacks to work alongside whites with the armed forces haltingly taking the first steps. But one is left wondering without Eleanor’s advocacy how much would have changed. FDR gave in to her on race issues because black’s voted, at least in the north. Eleanor was also a huge advocate for women’s rights in the workplace and a critic of Japanese interment, an issue FDR rolled over on. She also stood up for helping European refugees including the desperate Jews, but FDR refused to help because of politics. After all, these people had no votes. In short, Eleanor always put her conscience ahead of politics or popularity. FDR seemed to want to do the right thing but always put politics first.

Goodwin ascribed to Eleanor’s influence everything liberal in the President’s agenda. The President didn’t generate his own ideas in the areas of social democracy but rather simply reformulated hers based on political acceptance. Eleanor was a workaholic crusader. The President is presented as a crafty politician, a charmer with reassuring mannerisms and gifted speaker who sized people up quickly and accurately, listened well and absorbed everything but kept his real thoughts to himself. Goodwin even assumes Eleanor’s influence on FDR’s famous Four Freedom’s speech, “Eleanor never claimed credit for anything her husband did or said, and there is no way of tracing the direct connection between Eleanor’s ruminations about democracy and Franklin’s concept of four freedoms, but the link seems obvious.�

FDR’s three year affair from 1915-18 with Eleanor’s assistant, Lucy Page Mercer, was a consequence of a troubled relationship. The gregarious FDR enjoyed the nonsense and banter at lighthearted get-togethers while Eleanor, always serious, felt she didn’t belong to FDR’s crowd. When Franklin reached out to Eleanor in 1942 to have a more normal marriage she rejected him. She couldn’t forget. FDR continued to turn to other woman for the feminine companionship he needed. Goodwin presents the strong influence of women on FDR, his self-centered mother Sara, his work partner Eleanor, his close companion and de facto wife Missy LeHand, his flirty companion Princess Martha, his compliant daughter Anna and of course, his lover Lucy Mercer Rutherfurd. The one male close to FDR was his confidant and right hand man Harry Hopkins.

Yet for all his charm, FDR could quickly forget those he was closest too. When Missy LeHand, who the President relied on for years and spent endless intimate hours with, had a debilitating stroke, Eliot Janeway notes, “Roosevelt had absolutely no moral reaction to Missy’s tragedy. It seemed only that he resented her for getting sick and leaving him in the lurch. This was proof that he had ceased to be a person; he was simply the president. If something was good for him as president, it was good; if it had no function for him as president, it didn’t exist.� However Roosevelt did make financial arrangements to provide Missy medical care in the event of his death. Noting a similar lack of concern when FDR’s devoted friend Louis Howe died, Harold Ickes also observed, “despite his pleasant and friendly personality, he is cold as ice inside.�

On the return trip from the Yalta conference Harry Hopkins became very ill and stayed behind. “Roosevelt was angered by Hopkins� decision to leave, ‘Why did he have to get sick on me,� he muttered.� “All that Roosevelt could see was that Hopkins was leaving him, as Missy had left him before, and Louis Howe before that.� Hopkins, Howe and Missy LeHand were the three people Roosevelt most trusted and who controlled access to him during his presidency. It says something dark about Roosevelt’s character that when each fell sick or died that he was angry at them for deserting him.

Goodwin’s portraits lead us to the heart of Franklin and Eleanor’s relationship. “After initially valuing Franklin for his confidence, charm and sociability, qualities that stood in contrast to her own insecurity and shyness, Eleanor had come to see these traits as shallow and duplicitous. After being drawn to Eleanor’s sincerity, honesty and high principles, Franklin had redefined these same attributes as stiffness and inflexibility. “’She bothered him because she had integrity,� Anna Rosenberg observed.� “’You couldn’t find,� Anna Boettiger mused, ‘two such different people as mother and father’�

FDR was a great president who indefatigably and skillfully guided the American people through a depression and world war to a bright future. For the first time blacks were working alongside whites and woman alongside men on a significant scale. The war years were the only period in American history where there was a downward distribution of wealth. Growing income inequality is a hot topic today, but with this one exception it has always been that way. The Axis powers were soundly defeated and the U. S. became the most powerful nation on earth giving rise to the military-industrial complex that would dominate the rest of the century.

While one of our most effective presidents, FDR’s character left much to be desired. Perhaps most disturbing to me was FDR’s using his and Eleanor’s daughter, Anna, to arrange visits for his lover, Lucy Mercer Rutherfurd, to the White House and the Little White House in Warm Springs. Bad enough to see this relationship wrecker on the sly and risk grievously hurting Eleanor again, but to make their daughter a party to the deception is callous beyond belief. Lucy was with FDR when he died and of course the details of their relationship came out including Anna’s involvement. Eleanor was decimated. Before closing his casket for the last time, Eleanor took off her gold band and placed it in FDR’s hand to take with him. That says it all.