Around the World with the Roosevelts

FDR flew into Bathurst, Gambia, on both his way to the Casablanca Conference and again on his way home. After arriving in Bathurst on January 13, 1943, FDR made a tour of the waterfront by boat.

These wood carvings of an Ashanti Head Chief and his court were carved of Sese wood by a native of Achimota, Gold Coast, Africa, and presented to FDR on June 29, 1943, by the His Excellency, The Right Honorable Viscount Swinton, Resident Minister for West Africa, Accra, Gold Coast, as a souvenir of the Casablanca Conference. The figures shown here are the Queen Mother, the Head Chief, the Linguist, and the Umbrella Bearer.

In November 1943, President Roosevelt traveled to the Middle East to meet with other Allied leaders and discuss strategy at the Cairo and Tehran Conferences. While en route, FDR visited Tunisia to tour the sites of several battles fought there during the previous year.

 

During a November 21 stop at Medjez el Bab, FDR lunched with General Dwight D. Eisenhower and three members of his White House staff: General Edwin M. “Pa” Watson, Admiral Wilson Brown, and the President’s physician, Ross T. McIntire. During lunch, a member of the party spotted this horseshoe lying on the ground nearby. FDR had the horseshoe sent to the Roosevelt Library as a memento of this outing.

 

While in Tunisia, FDR met with his son, Lieutenant Colonel Elliott Roosevelt, who was Commander of the Northwest African Photographic Reconnaissance Wing of the US Army Air Force at the time. Elliott had procured this 6.35mm German Ortgies pistol from a capture German officer. Upon meeting his father, he presented the pistol as a gift.

From November 22-26, 1943, FDR met with Prime Minister Winston Churchill, Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek, and the Anglo-American combined chiefs of staff for the Cairo Conference. This meeting preceded the Teheran Conference and was primarily held to discuss Far Eastern military operations, to enhance the symbolic importance of China in the war effort and postwar planning and to provide for a U.S.-British meeting before the Teheran Conference with Stalin.

 

In addition to meeting on war strategy, FDR and Churchill visited the pyramids and had a traditional American Thanksgiving meal - including two turkeys FDR had brought from home.

After the historic conference in Yalta, President Roosevelt traveled from the Crimea region to Egypt where he boarded the USS Quincy in the Great Bitter Lake in the Suez Canal. It would be here that FDR would confer with several Heads-of-State in this region of the world over just a few days time. Security was high as World War II hostilities were ongoing. After much diplomatic correspondence and preparation, all leaders welcomed this opportunity to finally meet and establish a personal friendship with the President. They came together to discuss the major political issues that would affect their countries in the approaching post-war era.

 

On February 13, King Farouk of Egypt traveled from Cairo and spent much of the day meeting with the President and touring the ship. Emperor Haile Salassie of Ethiopia arrived on board later that evening, bringing with him several gifts—a gold globe and a gold cigarette box with filigree design.

The next day King Abdulaziz Al-Saud of Saudi Arabia arrived with his large entourage of 48 people. He brought with him many gifts for the President and his family.

In 1917, as Assistant Secretary of the Navy, FDR was sent to the Caribbean to inspect the Marine operations in Haiti and Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, to determine whether the approaches to the Panama Canal were wholly secure. While there he acquired these two hand-forged, steel rapiers.

President Roosevelt was an avid, lifelong fisherman. After his mobility became limited when he contracted polio in 1921, FDR spent a great deal of his leisure time either sailing or fishing. Dr. Ross McIntire, Roosevelt’s personal physician when he was President, advised Roosevelt to go on as many vacations as possible to improve his health. McIntire later recounted, “Despite our bargain about regular vacations, I doubt, however, if he would have kept the agreement except for his love of the water and fishing.”

At the end of the First 100 Days, Franklin Roosevelt went sailing. On June 17, 1933, he left Marion, Massachusetts, at the helm of a small rented sloop called the Amberjack II. The ship’s crew included three of his sons.

Roosevelt’s destination was a poignant one—Campobello Island in New Brunswick, Canada. Campobello was the site of the Roosevelt family’s summer home. It was a place familiar to FDR and full of rich memories from annual trips dating back to his childhood.

Yet FDR had not visited Campobello since the summer of 1921. It was there, in August 1921, that he was stricken with infantile paralysis. He had left the island on a stretcher, never to walk again unassisted.

Intensely guarded about his inner feelings, FDR never revealed his private thoughts about his return to Campobello. Whatever his motivation, the positive impact of this highly-publicized sailing journey on his public image was undeniable.

Today, the Roosevelt home is part of the Roosevelt Campobello International Park. The park was created through an international treaty signed by Governor General Georges Vanier, Prime Minister Lester B. Pearson, and President Lyndon B. Johnson on January 22, 1964.

In March 1934, Eleanor made an inspection trip to Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands with a number of newspaperwomen, including Lorena Hickok, Bess Furman, and Ruby Black. Eleanor wrote about her trip in her autobiography, saying: "Rexford Tugwell, who was then in the Department of Agriculture, was going down to make a study of what could be done in that field, and my husband thought if I went too, it might show the people that he was really interested in the conditions there…I remember going down a street, looking into the houses of factory workers. Most of them consisted of two rooms; the back room had no light, and practically the only light in the front room came through the doorway. There were no screens and, of course, no plumbing or other modern conveniences. Many of the women cooked out of doors on little stoves…On my return I begged my husband to send down some labor people and industrialists to look over the situation. Some of my friends have since gone there to develop new industries and I think several small industries are going successfully. When Mr. Tugwell later became governor of Puerto Rico, he tried to carry out many of the ideas he had thought, on his first trip, might help, but the islands still remain a difficult problem and one which the United States is far from having solved satisfactorily."

On July 1, 1934, FDR boarded the USS Houston to begin his three week journey to the Territory of Hawaii. During the cruise FDR and his party made stops in the Bahamas, Haiti, Puerto Rico, St. Thomas, St. Croix, Colombia, Panama, Cocos Island, and Clipperton Island. These stops included visits with foreign leaders and dignitaries, sightseeing through various countries and lots of fishing. FDR landed in Hawaii on July 24th to begin his historic visit.

In July of 1934, FDR became the first sitting U.S. president to visit the Territory of Hawaii. He crossed the Pacific aboard the USS Houston, spent some time fishing off the shores of Kailua-Kona, and then debarked at the ports of Hilo and Honolulu to tour cultural sites, natural landmarks, and military areas. The people of Hawaii joyfully welcomed the President, demonstrating for him their pride in Hawaiian culture, both ancient and modern. More than 60,000 people, including a flotilla of traditional Hawaiian outrigger canoes, greeted FDR as he arrived in Honolulu. Hawaiian dignitaries adorned the President with customary flower leis, residents lined the streets for welcome parades, and a grand luau took place at FDR’s Royal Hawaiian Hotel headquarters, complete with hula demonstrations and a kalua pig roasted inside a traditional imu underground oven. Over several days FDR toured the Big Island and Oahu by car, meeting many Hawaiians and observing New Deal inspired building and educational developments. Roosevelt’s two sons even took surfing lessons with the legendary Duke Kahanamoku. The FDR Presidential Library houses several gifts Roosevelt received during the 1934 visit. In his departing remarks to the people of Hawaii on July 28th, 1934, the President expressed his thanks to all, bidding them “Aloha from the bottom of my heart.” FDR’s next and final visit to Hawaii would take place ten years later, in 1944, near the end of World War II. By that time the small yet influential Pacific Island chain had taken on a more infamous role in world history.

FDR took part in a lighthearted Crossing of the Line ceremony when the USS Indianapolis crossed the Equator en route to South America in 1936. This longstanding Navy tradition required first-timers, dubbed pollywogs, to stand before King Neptune’s Court as a rite of initiation. Presidents, apparently, were no exception. Original caption reads: “The Commander-in-Chief of the Army and Navy pleads his case before the Royal Judge. Beside him stands the Defense Attorney, ready to defend his client against anything but the charges of the court.”

On August 3, 1941, the White House informed the press that FDR was leaving Washington for a fishing cruise.  

 

In fact, the President was headed for a top-secret meeting with Winston Churchill aboard two warships in the North Atlantic. FDR used the conference to signal support for Britain in its battle with the Axis Powers. The conference lasted from August 9-12. At its conclusion, Roosevelt and Churchill issued the “Atlantic Charter”- a joint declaration of principles that helped rally the Allied nations.

 

The Atlantic Conference gave the British people hope that the United States would at last join them in fighting Hitler.  But when isolationists claimed FDR had made “secret commitments” to Churchill to intervene in the European war, Roosevelt publicly denied the charges.    

 

In January 1941, prior to their meeting in the North Atlantic, Roosevelt wrote to Winston Churchill quoting a verse from Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s poem, “The Building of the Ship.” The note proved to be an inspiration for Churchill, who at the time was anxiously seeking American support in the war. Churchill repeated the lines in a radio broadcast and it soon became an inspiration for the British people.

 

When Roosevelt and Churchill met for the Atlantic Conference seven months later, Churchill brought with him two of these decorative broadside lithographs featuring the same verse. Both Roosevelt and Churchill signed each print and Churchill presented this copy to FDR.

On April 20, 1943, Franklin and Eleanor made a visit to Monterrey, Mexico, to meet with President Manuel Avila Camacho and his wife. The two leaders and their wives reviewed Mexican troops, watched a performance by Mexican school children and attended an official state dinner. President Camacho and his wife returned the visit by accompanying FDR and Eleanor to a U.S. Navy air base in Corpus Christi, Texas, the next day. During his dinner remarks, FDR stated: "It is an amazing thing to have to realize that nearly 34 years have passed since Chief Executives of our two countries have met face to face. I hope that in the days to come every Mexican and every American President will feel at liberty to visit each other just as neighbors visit each other- just as neighbors talk things over and get to know each other better…We have achieved close understanding and unity of purpose, and I am grateful to you, Mr. President, and to the Mexican people, for this opportunity to meet you on Mexican soil, and—to call you friends.

You and I are breaking another precedent. Let these meetings between Presidents of Mexico and the United States recur again and again and again." 

FDR and Winston Churchill held two wartime conferences in Quebec. The first conference took place on August 17-24, 1943. The two discussed topics concerning the future operations in the Mediterranean and Operation Overlord. Conversations on atomic energy were also on the agenda, with FDR and Churchill agreeing that neither would communicate any information about atomic development to third parties, namely the Soviet Union, without each other’s consent. The second Quebec Conference was held on September 11-16, 1944. The central topics of this conference were postwar policy towards Germany and postwar economic assistance to Britain. Two silver models of a Whale and a Phoenix were presented to President Roosevelt by Prime Minister Winston Churchill at the Second Quebec Conference in September 1944. These are small scale models representing installations devised and built as part of the artificial harbor constructed off the beaches of Normandy in June 1944. 

"On the 4th of March Tommy and I left for our 13,000-mile plane trip in the Caribbean area. My husband had insisted that I take this trip. Because the war had receded in that area, the men stationed there felt they were in a backwater and chafed to be where they could do what they considered a more important job. Nevertheless, we had to have men there to guard and watch for submarines, because there was so much traffic to Europe, Asia and Africa. Franklin wanted the men to realize that he knew and understood the whole picture and believed they were doing a vital job-that they were not forgotten, even though they were not on the front line.

 

I was getting a little weary of the criticism heaped on me for taking these trips, but because my husband insisted that my visit to the South Pacific had been a success in that it had accomplished what he had hoped for, I decided to make this tour. He mapped it out, and I took Miss Thompson with me. The entire trip, from March 4 to March 28, was by air, and in that period we visited Guantánamo, Cuba; Jamaica, Puerto Rico; Virgin Islands; Antigua; St. Lucia; Trinidad; Paramaribo; Belém, Natal and Recife in Brazil; La Guaira; Curaçao; Aruba; Barranquilla; Canal Zone; Salinas; Galápagos Islands; Guatamala; Havana, Cuba. From Havana we flew straight home.” - Eleanor Roosevelt’s Autobiography. While visiting Puerto Rico in 1944, The Boy Scouts of America of Puerta De Tierra presented this pin to Eleanor Roosevelt along with a greeting from Scout Executive David Acosta.

FDR began to collect stamps as a child.  The far-flung business interests of his Delano relatives provided the young collector with a steady supply of foreign stamps. From his stamps he gained an invaluable knowledge of peoples and of geography. This hobby persisted with Roosevelt his entire life and he was well-known for his collection. As a result, he was often presented with stamps, stamp covers, and stamp albums as gifts from foreign Heads-of-State and governments. Here you can see a few of the stamp-related gifts from all over the world FDR received during his presidency.

Eleanor Roosevelt strongly supported Israel from the time of its founding in 1948, often using her political influence to advocate with officials in Washington for support of the Jewish state. She made numerous trips there, the first in 1952 and the last in 1962, just 8 months before her death.

In 1952 Eleanor made a significant trip to Asia – a month of which was spent in India. Having been invited by Indian Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru, Eleanor chronicled her trip through her “My Day” columns and later in her book India and the Awakening East. Through her writings she worked on educating Americans on what was a little-known country at the time. While in India Eleanor visited hospitals, schools, women’s and social work organizations, and universities – several of which gave her honorary degrees. Eleanor also received several ceremonial necklaces throughout the trip, such as the one seen here. She also received these two pencil sketches of Mahatma Gandhi and FDR. Each drawing is inscribed to ER by the artist, Swamy. Her “My Day” column from March 3, 1952, talks about her excitement at finally visiting India:     "It is very exciting to be in India after reading my father’s letters of many years ago, which told of his trip under very different circumstances 89 years ago. Meeting people from here and reading books about it are not quite the same as seeing with one’s own eyes. It is really a joy to feel that I have accomplished something I have talked about and hoped for, but really did not ever expect to see. My impressions are becoming very well crystallized in my mind as I go forward on this trip, and it is certainly most interesting to see the difference that a landscape takes on when it is peopled by so many more inhabitants than one would see at home in the same area of space."

During her 1952 “Around the World” trip, Eleanor made a stop in Karachi, Pakistan, where she was to be the guest of the All Pakistan Women’s Association. She wrote about the trip in her autobiography saying: "We flew to Karachi, the capital of Pakistan, where I was to be the guest of the All Pakistan Women’s Association, at the invitation of Begum Liaquat Ali Khan…I had met the Begum Liaquat Ali Khan at a meeting of the General Assembly in Paris and had found her delightful. After the assassination of her husband, which shocked the world, the begum had devoted herself to trying to carry out his plans for his people. It is because of her leadership and the example of the Begum Husain Malik, that the women of Pakistan have begun to free themselves of the restrictions imposed by tradition. The principal instrument through which they are accomplishing their really magnificent work is the All Pakistan Women’s Association, which has set up medical clinics, established educational centers, diffused information about agricultural methods, developed skills and handicrafts. The spirit of the people of Pakistan is something one does not soon forget. There is courage and great vitality. They are determined to make their government succeed, and their nation a cohesive force. In talking to the men at the head of this government, I was convinced that their devotion and intelligent approach, with the resolute support of the people, cannot fail to make Pakistan a great country."

In May 1953, Eleanor began an around the world trip as an unofficial ambassador of U.S. culture. She spent the first five weeks of her trip in Japan as part of a cultural exchange program. Eleanor met with Emperor Hirohito and Empress Nagako, talked with women’s groups, students and government ministers and visited Hiroshima. This group of dolls was presented to Eleanor Roosevelt during her visit to Japan 1953 by the New Japan Broadcasting Co. Ltd., the Meiji Mutual Life Insurance Co., and Mrs. Keiko Tokonami, President of Holy Friend Home (Seiyu Home) in Tokyo.

After leaving Japan at the end of June, Eleanor continued westward, making stops in Hong Kong, Thailand, Burma, India, Turkey, Greece, Yugoslavia, Austria, France, and England. She chronicled her travels through her daily “My Day” columns. 

FDR made a number of trips to Europe with his parents during his childhood, including numerous trips to Germany. The Roosevelts often traveled to Germany to visit several ancient springs in hope that they would help Mr. James’ health. Roosevelt historian Geoff Ward recounts a story of one of these German trips in his book Before the Trumpet. During a trip in 1896, FDR and his tutor Mr. Dumper “found themselves under arrest four times in one busy day of bicycling – for picking cherries along the roadside, for wheeling their bicycles into a railroad depot, for riding into Strasbourg after dusk…and finally, for inadvertent slaughter of a panicky goose that had thrust its long neck between the spokes of Mr. Dumper’s front wheel.” FDR managed to get them out of the first three violations without a fine, but in the end they did have to pay five marks to the owner of the goose. “Franklin always maintained the bird had really ‘committed suicide.’”

“For three years, I basked in her generous presence, and I think those three years did much to form my character and give me the confidence to go through some of the trials that awaited me … .” -Eleanor Roosevelt, describing Marie Souvestre’s influence on her, The Seven People Who Shaped My Life, 1951. Until age 15, Eleanor was educated in small private classes conducted in her family’s homes. She had few friends and froze when called upon to answer questions. But she loved learning and read voraciously. In 1899, her Grandmother Hall sent her to Allenswood Academy, an exclusive girls’ finishing school near London.  Allenswood’s headmistress was Marie Souvestre, a formidable woman of deep intellect and progressive ideas. Eleanor flourished at Allenswood. She described her years there as the “happiest of my life.” Souvestre recognized ER’s hidden strengths, helped her gain confidence, and awakened her social conscience. This “extraordinary character,” ER recalled, “exerted perhaps the greatest influence on my girlhood.” In 1902, Eleanor reluctantly came home from Allenswood to make her debut in New York society. Her formal education was over. But ER was profoundly changed. She kept Marie Souvestre’s portrait on her desk throughout her life. 

Franklin and Eleanor were married on March 17, 1905, in New York City where Eleanor’s uncle, President Theodore Roosevelt, gave away the bride and stole the show for the day. Franklin and Eleanor then departed for an extended three month summer honeymoon. The couple traveled from Britain through France, Italy, Switzerland, Germany, and back to Britain again before returning home in time for Franklin to begin his second year of law school at Columbia University. While traveling throughout Europe, FDR and Eleanor purchased a number of objects which now reside in our museum collections. 

Franklin D. Roosevelt was the first sitting president to ride in an airplane, an occasion marked by a very long overseas flight to attend the 1943 Casablanca conference. FDR’s distant cousin, Theodore, was the first president ever to fly, a trip that took place back in 1910 shortly after he had left the presidency. FDR may have set an additional aviation first – we think he may have been the first president to fly on-board a dirigible airship (also known as a blimp or zeppelin)! During World War I, serving as Assistant Secretary of the Navy, FDR traveled to Europe to inspect US Navy facilities. Several weeks into his trip, on August 17th, 1918, he visited a base in Paimboeuf, Western France, where he was offered a ride aboard a French-built airship. Considered too vulnerable for use on the front, airships were primarily used for scouting missions and mine clearance throughout Western Europe during the war. The use of airships later declined as airplane technology advanced and after several high profile accidents. FDR was serving his second term as president when the infamous Hindenburg crashed in New Jersey in 1937. FDR writes about the flying experience in his log of the trip saying: "I tried my hand at running the lateral stearing[sic] gear and also the elevating and depressing gear. The sensation is distinctly curious, less noise than an areo.[sic] and far more feeling of drifting at the mercy of the wind."

FDR served as Assistant Secretary of the Navy during World War I. During the summer of 1918 he traveled to Europe to visit the front lines of the fighting in France. FDR made stops in England and Paris before heading towards the trenches. He visited the battlefields at Château-Thierry, Belleau Wood, and Verdun, was briefly under enemy fire and came within a mile of the German lines. FDR wrote about his experience in a log he kept during the trip.

In July 1929, Eleanor left for a summer long tour of Europe with her sons Franklin, Jr. and John, as well as friends Marion Dickerman and Nancy Cook. Eleanor recounted the trip in her autobiography saying: "That summer, with the two younger boys, I went to Europe. My husband had particularly wanted me to show them the fronts over which our men had fought World War I, Quentin Roosevelt’s grave, and some cemeteries. I had already pointed out to them in the little villages of England the monuments to the men who had been killed in that war. The cemeteries, with their rows and rows of crosses, made an impression on the boys, but they were, of course, unable to gather the significance of the new buildings in the old French villages and towns. To young Americans, new buildings were not strange, and while I was impressed by the way nature had covered her scars in the woods and fields, I pointed out to the boys the whitened stumps and the fact that the trees were young, showing that whole forests had been mowed down just a few years ago. In the fields I pointed out the ditches, which had been dug by soldiers for protection, and the curious holes made by bursting shells, now covered with grass. My older son said to me one day: ‘This is a funny country. There are only boys our age and old men coming out of the fields. There don’t seem to be any men of father’s age.’ That was simply another proof that the war had taken from France a heavy toll of her young men from 1914 to 1918."

In October 1942, Eleanor traveled to Great Britain on a goodwill trip to help foster Anglo-American relations. While there she toured the country - meeting with American servicemen, British women defense workers, Prime Minister Churchill, members of Parliament and King George VI and Queen Elizabeth. Eleanor talked about the trip in her autobiography saying: "The next event of real importance to me was my husband’s decision that I should accept Queen Elizabeth’s invitation to go to Great Britain to see the work the women were doing in the war and to visit our servicemen stationed there. I did not know that one of the reasons my husband was eager to have me go over there was that those men would shortly be leaving for North Africa for the invasion...The trip to Great Britain seemed to offer me a chance to do something that might be useful…I visited universities and innumerable factories, stayed on estates where the grounds were now being used for agricultural purposes and in country houses whose owners, now living in one small part of them, had turned them into nurseries for evacuated or wounded children. I saw the way the Women’s Voluntary Services had organized to perform innumerable duties, from moving into a town which had just been bombed and needed everything from food to laundry service, to looking after the billeting of workers who had been moved from one factory to another."

On February 2, 1945, FDR arrived in Malta aboard the USS Quincy for a preliminary conference with Prime Minister Winston Churchill before the meeting in Yalta of Roosevelt, Churchill and Stalin.

 

“I didn’t say the result was good. I said it was the best I could do.” -Franklin Roosevelt to diplomat Adolf Berle, Jr. In the winter of 1945, Roosevelt met with Winston Churchill and Joseph Stalin for the last time. The setting was the Ukrainian town of Yalta. The Big Three gathered to chart a course for final victory in World War II.  But during the Yalta Conference, they also struggled to create the basis for post-war cooperation. FDR received Stalin’s firm commitment to enter the increasingly bloody war against Japan three months after Germany’s defeat. With American casualties rising in the Pacific war— and the atomic bomb yet untested— this was a significant achievement for the President. The Big Three also formally agreed to another of FDR’s priorities—the establishment of the United Nations organization. But there were serious disagreements about the future of Germany and the fate of areas occupied by Soviet armies, especially Poland.  

“We stand today at the threshold of a great event both in the life of the United Nations and in the life of mankind… . This declaration may well become the international Magna Carta of all men everywhere.” -Eleanor Roosevelt, Speech to U.N. General Assembly on the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, December 9, 1948. In December 1945, seeking to signal America’s commitment to the new United Nations organization— and cement his ties to a powerful Democratic party figure— President Harry Truman appointed Eleanor Roosevelt to America’s first delegation to the General Assembly. Eleanor quickly became a major force on refugee and human rights issues. From 1946 to 1951 she chaired the U.N. Human Rights Commission leading the effort to draft the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. An able and determined negotiator, she clashed frequently with Soviet delegates over the definition of human liberties. In the process, she pushed the State Department to recognize that human rights are not only civil and political rights, but social and economic rights too. The Declaration was Eleanor’s proudest achievement at the U.N. It created the modern definition of human rights. Today it is the standard for establishing norms governing international behavior regarding the rights of individuals. Eleanor’s duties as a delegate to the United Nations included many trips abroad to London, Paris and Geneva. Eleanor received several gifts during these trips.

Eleanor made a trip to Germany in 1946 to visit refugee camps in Frankfurt and Berlin. As always, she chronicled her journey in her “My Day” columns: "My visit to Frankfurt was packed so full of emotions, it is hard to give you an adequate idea of what I saw and how I felt. Yesterday morning, we visited the Zeilsheim Jewish displaced-persons camp. It is one of the best, since the people are living in houses previously occupied by Germans. In these houses, each little family has a room to itself. Often a family must cross a room occupied by another in order to enter or leave the house, but there are doors and walls to separate them. If they like, they may bring food from the camp kitchen to their rooms and eat in what they call “home.” They made me a speech at a monument they have erected to the six million dead Jewish people. I answered from an aching heart. When will our consciences grow so tender that we will act to prevent human misery rather than avenge it? Someone asked a man, who looked old but couldn’t have been really old, about his family. This was his answer: “They were made into soap.” They had been burned to death in a concentration camp. Outside the school, the children greeted me. They told me a little boy of ten was the camp singer. He looked six. He had wandered into camp one day with his brother, all alone, so he was the head of his family. He sang for me—a song of his people—a song of freedom. Your heart cried out that there was no freedom—and where was hope, without which human beings cannot live? There is a feeling of desperation and sorrow in this camp which seems beyond expression. An old woman knelt on the ground, grasping my knees. I lifted her up, but could not speak. What could one say at the end of a life which had brought her such complete despair?"

Eleanor with Ernest Gross and P.C. Jessup arriving at the Palais de Chaillot, Paris, France, September 22, 1948.

While on her way home from Japan in June 1953 Eleanor made a stop in Yugoslavia. During her visit she traveled to Brionia to meet with Josip Tito, President of Yugoslavia. Eleanor recounted parts of that trip in her autobiography: "Next morning I arrived at the President’s villa alone promptly at ten o’clock, riding in a Victoria. There were no obvious signs of guards or police near the villa, although no doubt the marshal is protected in an unobtrusive way, as our White House is protected by the Secret Service men…As I entered, a young-looking man came across the room to greet me. For a few moments, I could not believe that this was Marshal Tito because he seemed far too youthful. It was only after he had greeted me warmly and I had seated myself on a sofa beside him that I was able to observe that his hair was graying and there were deep lines of experience in his strongly molded face. He has great charm and a strong personality. His jaw juts out and he speaks in the manner of a man who gives orders and expects to be obeyed. But he does have a sense of humor and he was pleasant to me, and he conveyed the impression of speaking frankly and honestly…Later we all went down to the dock where we got into a speedboat to go to a small island that Marshal Tito uses as a retreat when he wishes to be alone. The marshal himself piloted one speedboat, taking me with him, and seemed to get a great deal of fun out of it. Still later in the afternoon, we took a short trip on the stat yacht in the Adriatic. The security officers surrounding Marshal Tito were obviously nervous about the possibility of kidnapping, and the ship was accompanied by armed vessels while military airplanes were constantly overhead or nearby."

Two of Eleanor’s traveling companions during the post-White House years were Dr. David and Edna Gurewitsch. The Gurewitschs were close friends of Eleanor, and David was Eleanor’s personal physician from the late 1940’s on. During the many years of their friendship, they corresponded regularly and travelled together to Israel, Pakistan, India, Greece, Yugoslavia, France, Switzerland, and the Soviet Union. Dr. Gurewitsch took hundreds of photographs of the former First Lady during these trips. In 2002, Edna Gurewitsch published Kindred Souls: The Friendship of Eleanor Roosevelt and David Gurewitsch. The book recounts the relationship between Eleanor and David and includes many stories of their travels together. The following passage describes a trip taken by Eleanor and the Gurewitsch’s to the Soviet Union in 1957: "We were staying at the National Hotel, where the WFUNA meetings were to be held. Situated on Red Square, with a view of the vast Kremlin beyond, it was extremely impressive and had doubtlessly been more so when Lenin stayed in the hotel in 1918…Lenin had once lived in the suite we were given. It had a tremendous double-bedded room with bath, and a smaller second bedroom and bath, each room having a door opening onto an imposing sitting room, which the three of us shared…The master bedroom was obviously meant for Mrs. Roosevelt, but she would not hear of occupying it. Over David’s and my protests, she insisted that we two would not feel as lost in it as she would. Later, as we prepared to leave the Soviet Union, we learned that, out of respect for Mrs. Roosevelt, the government had had the bedroom furniture used by President Roosevelt during the Yalta Conference with Stalin and Churchill flown to the National Hotel in Moscow for her use. It was a truly grand gesture, and subtle, too, the information coming as it did at the end of our stay. The thought pleased Mrs. Roosevelt, though David and I cringed at the news, having used the furniture ourselves."

In March 1944, Eleanor Roosevelt undertook another major international travel trip. Eleanor made a 13,000 mile trip to visit troops at various army and navy bases in Latin America. Her trip included stops in Brazil, Ecuador, Venezuela, Colombia, Panama, Guatemala, Cuba, Puerto Rico, and the Virgin Islands. 

These two flags were presented to Eleanor Roosevelt on November 2, 1952, in Santiago, Chile, by the daughter of the incoming President, Carlos Ibáñez del Campo. As head of the official United States delegation, Eleanor was in Santiago for the inauguration of General Ibáñez’s second presidency. On her way home from Chile, Eleanor made a stop in Peru. This sterling silver tray was given to her by Ernesto Romero of Lima, Peru, to commemorate her visit.

Crown Prince Frederik and Crown Princess Ingrid of Denmark visited the Roosevelts in April and May of 1939. While in Hyde Park the royals attended the opening of the Rhinebeck Post Office as well as a picnic at FDR’s Top Cottage.

After spending time in the spring of 1939 touring the United States, Crown Prince Olav and Princess Märtha of Norway came to New York in April to dedicate the Norwegian exhibit at the World’s Fair. They made a stop in Hyde Park to have a visit with the President’s family and attend what was becoming the customary Roosevelt picnic at the newly completed Top Cottage.

“I think it would be an excellent thing for Anglo-American relations if you could visit the United States.” -Franklin Roosevelt to King George VI, September 17, 1938. With war looming, FDR searched for ways to bolster ties with democratic nations opposing Hitler. When he invited England’s King George VI for a state visit in June 1939, the message was clear. No reigning British monarch had ever visited America. The invitation signaled a new era in Anglo-American cooperation.

FDR and ER planned every detail to ensure the King won sympathy and support. Their efforts paid off.  The public heartily welcomed the King and Queen in Washington. The royals visited Mount Vernon, where the King laid a wreath at George Washington’s grave. Later, they accompanied the Roosevelts to Hyde Park, where they enjoyed simple American pleasures, including a hot dog picnic. FDR and King George developed a real rapport. More important, press coverage of the royal visit fostered public sympathy with Britain.

During the British Royal visit of June 1939, King George VI president FDR with this House of Windsor gold inkwell, made by Garrard & Co. Ltd. of London.