ISBN: 9780143106999

Publisher: Penguin

Eleanor Roosevelt was an extraordinary woman in so many ways. In writing Tomorrow Is Now her call was to attempt or try to analyze the problems that needed to be met, dealt with, how they should be met and using her imagination and courage hopefully succeeding. As you read her words and the Introduction by Allida Black you will take a journey back in time to learn about the life, goals, times and ideals of Eleanor Roosevelt. She was more than just the First Lady of the United States. She delves into the paste and presents the lessons American history taught her. Eleanor Roosevelt as you will learn when reading this book and hearing her voice ring out in every word, about her observations, her politics, policies and her causes. As Allida Black states so accurately in her introduction Eleanor Roosevelt’s, “Political heart lay with the reform groups that directly address the issues she thought most threatened Americans.”   Eleanor Roosevelt was concerned and supported The Women’s Trade Union League with her colleague Maud Swartz, along with child labor, alcoholism, unsafe working conditions, substantial housing and exploitive wage and hour policies plus the war. Throughout the introduction we learn more about her life in the White House, her concern for the general public not for elected officials and undertaking new assignments as the President’s wife. 

Students today and even during her time had little or no knowledge about the history of our great nation. As Eleanor herself shares a story in her first chapter we learn about the many students who could not even recognize our Bill of Rights or and some referred to the constitution as an Unknown Document. She continues with those that came here in covered wagons knowing the way would not be say and the courage that they showed and the hardships endured in order to live in The New World. The American Revolution and followed by the history of the Civil War, Washington’s Farewell address and more her insight and statement to our nation was that: “Changes are coming upon us=and upon the world-at a fantastic pace that there is no time to waste.” Adding that the world is waiting for America to set the example of “dynamic drive,” and “staying aloof,: was not the answer. Learning to think freshly and to reexamine our beliefs as she continues with how she view Today.

Her thoughts continue with The World Revolution and the Economic Revolution and then the Social Revolution which focuses on where changes demand that we become more flexible and outlining where the social revolution of the times should provide everyone with an equal chance to enjoy the benefits that only a few that are privileged have been afforded. The need for everyone to accept people of different races and understand racial equality is only part of how she saw the Social Revolution of our country. Needed to deal with the Social Revolution is the fact that we must also learn more about the same in other parts of the world. A primary area that is address is the Revolution in Education and the fact that our young people even today have not been given or taught how to think for themselves. The younger generation needs to understand, that people in general need to take responsibility for themselves. 

Eleanor really did not want to give up her teaching position when FDR became President. Her enthusiasm and having the rare quality of being able to express herself and communicate with students and the younger generation attests to her conviction that our youth then and even know must face the problems of creating a better world today and that of tomorrow. Adding in that the need for communication is vital and the importance of providing tools through which languages can be easily learned.

One chapter that really sets an important tone and is quite relevant even today is Chapter 7 Getting to Know You. Her concern with young people is quite apparent and she states that many need to learn how to deal with being at Home in the World. Young people need to learn to understand other “peoples,” and she states that even we have not adequately communicative our story to the world. In learning to be at home in our world she feels is one of the surest ways overcome our fears. The Machinery for Peace followed by The Individual in the Revolution completes Tomorrow is Now with one final chapter: The Land Is Bright where she sums up the major areas that she has focused on: educations and the need for sparking a new, deep and “fervent sense of responsibility in every individual.” Third, as today: The Field of Science and lastly learn her definition in this final chapter of the word Brave: Without it we cannot succeed.

Choices are something that we all make and have to live with. Leaders do not determine our destiny she states as much as the more, ”powerful influence of the combined voices of the people themselves. Hope, Human Rights, History, Democracy, Justice, Peace and the Middle East are just some of what she touches on in this outstanding book. Tomorrow is Now: It is really still today.

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