Here's Where It Gets Interesting - How Women Won WWII: The Confidante, Anna Rosenberg

Episode Date: February 10, 2023

On today's episode, we hear from author Christopher Gorham, whose new book, The Confidante, is the first-ever biography written about one of the United State's most powerful women: Anna Rosenberg. Join us as Christopher and Sharon share about Anna's life and contributions to the modern shaping of our American Government. Thank you to our guest, Christopher C. Gorham. Preorder The Confidante: The Untold Story of the Woman Who Helped Win WWII and Shape Modern America, out Feb 21st. Hosted by: Sharon McMahon Guest: Christopher C. Gorham Executive Producer: Heather Jackson Audio Producer: Jenny Snyder Written and researched by: Heather Jackson, Sharon McMahon, Valerie Hoback, and Amy Watkin Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hello, friends. Welcome. Welcome to Episode 9 in our documentary series, How Women Won World War II. Today's episode is called The Confidant, and I can't wait to tell you more about a woman in U.S. government who held a tremendous amount of power, but whose name tremendous amount of power, but whose name you've probably never heard. In fact, Life Magazine said, far and away the most important woman in the American government, and perhaps the most important official female in the world. In the world. And I bet you don't yet know Anna Rosenberg. And I bet you don't yet know Anna Rosenberg. Let's dive in. I'm Sharon McMahon, and here's where it gets interesting.

Anna Rosenberg was discreet. She considered it distasteful when formerly powerful people wrote their memoirs, spilling their dirty laundry for all to see. She preferred to stay behind the scenes, acting more as a kingmaker without aspiring to royalty herself. She was one of FDR's most important domestic advisors. And in short order, you're going to see how an immigrant girl who sailed under the Statue of Liberty to begin life anew, a girl who never even finished high school, would soon be integral to winning World War II. Author Christopher Gorham, who is a history teacher, came across a picture of Anna Rosenberg a few years ago and was intrigued. Who was she?

He offered options on an assignment in his class and put Anna Rosenberg on the list of people students could research and profile. while. When his students discovered that there wasn't one book on her, and next to no information to be found in the library, this only piqued his interest more. Mort Dicking uncovered a treasure trove of documents at the Harvard Library, and soon, Gorham and his students were in a room being presented with archival material about Anna Rosenberg by librarians wearing silk gloves. Gorham soon realized that Anna Rosenberg was much more important and much more powerful than he even realized, and it was time that someone told her story. His book, The Confidant, was born. As the country's resident expert on Anna Rosenberg, we are very grateful to Christopher Gorham for sharing his expertise with us today.

Anna was born in Hungary, and when her family was forced to go in search of a fresh start, they immigrated to the United States. Her family was exiled from Budapest, Hungary by a disagreement that her father had. He had worked for the emperor and the emperor had a disagreement with her father. And the next thing you know, he was on a ship to New York. And there was a change of circumstances. The Lederer family had been middle class in Budapest, and Papa Lederer in New York was not.

He took a job in the needle trades, and a couple years later was able to call for his family. Anna arrived at Ellis Island, Anna, her sister and mother. And almost immediately, though, sort of was hit with a sense of patriotism. Her father, despite the travails, had sort of become a super patriot. He loved the idea of voting, of having a voice, of jury duty. And he passed that on to his daughter, Anna. And she really took to that. These were the years of the suffrage movement was very important.

Anna asked herself what she could do with the suffrage movement. She would march with women and girls down the streets of New York. She asked herself what she could do as the United States entered World War I. She volunteered as a nurse. She sold liberty bonds. So she was very, very patriotic from the very beginning of her time in America. Her patriotism sort of took a step beyond into political interest. She was a late teen.

She went to hear a Tammany Hall speaker who was a woman. And the woman said, you you know now is the time for us to get out there and get the right to vote so it was important for Anna to see women wanting to become engaged in politics in ways that that had never really been possible not only in the United States but certainly not have been something that Anna would have seen in Europe. At this time Anna is 19 or, and for reasons that you can read about in the book, she was, despite being a wonderful student and a wonderful student leader, she was asked to leave high school. So yes, Anna Rosenberg did not actually graduate from high

school. She was proud of her time at the public schools of New York, but she was asked to leave without a high school diploma. And that was actually the last formal education that Anna Rosenberg had. Anna eventually married and had a son. And as a young woman, she discovered she had a talent, a talent for negotiating, a talent for using her wit and charm to get people to come to the table ready to make a change. And it was this unique talent, the ability to quiet a room when her petite frame and her beautiful hat entered it, that changed everything. As soon as she was able, she dove right into the New York City political scene by first managing two electoral success, two New York City campaigns for aldermen and assemblymen. This platform, coupled with her

suffrage activism, led to her building a strong democratic network. By 1924, she'd found her specific passion and opened her own consulting firm with a concentration in labor relations and welfare services. Her notoriety quickly rose from local to national when she formed a partnership working with the International Ladies Garment Workers Union, as well as many other high-profile labor and union organizations. She had sort of a political father in a Tammany Hall boss named Jim Hagan. She went to a meeting and Jim Hagan was railing against the women's right to vote. And Anna Rosenberg stood up and sassed him. And instead of being angry with her, he took her under his wing and mentored her in the retail politics of New York City for about three years. So that was an education for Anna Rosenberg.

Her sort of political mother at this time was Belle Moskowitz, who was working with Governor Al Smith. Moskowitz would write legislation. She would draft speeches. She would fundraise. She was kind of running the Al Smith brand in New York. Greys. She was kind of running the Al Smith brand in New York. And when she met Anna, she kind of took her under her wing as well and really demonstrated or revealed to Anna the power behind the throne, how a woman could effectuate change from behind the scenes. And knowing the retail politics of New York and now knowing how to exercise power behind the scenes, both Jim Hagen and Bell Moskowitz were very, very formative, very significant in Anna's development into who she

became. In fact, it was Bell Moskowitz who suggested to Anna that she get involved in public relations and labor relations. And Anna did. Anna opened up an office, modest at first, in PR and labor relations and before long was gaining clients. And what was unique about Anna and why she gained clients is she was just an expert mediator. She had business leaders and owners at a time when ownership and unions did not get along. You know, this was a time of a lot of strike activity in the United States. And Anna was able to mediate through that. Business owners said, I would have saved $10,000 to have an hour of her time. And union men were saying, if Anna tells us something, we know she's on the level. So she had this ability to get the

two sides together. And that was really a gift. And her business started to take off. As the word spread around the city of Anna Rosenberg's prowess as a mediator, more and more companies brought her on. Delivery companies, sports teams, clothing, shoe manufacturers, on and on. And by the end of the 20s, she was described in one magazine article as the busiest woman in New York. During the 1928 election season, as Franklin Delano Roosevelt was running for governor of New York, his wife Eleanor was managing the female Democratic caucus for the state. And the two of them developed a warm acquaintance with each other, with Eleanor Roosevelt telling friends that Anna was extremely kind and nice about wanting to involve me in her activities.

And this led to her providential meeting with the soon-to-be governor of New York himself, FDR. Now, how she met the Roosevelts is very interesting. Anna continued to, through Jim Hagen, through Belmoskowitz, through philanthropic organizations, Anna continued to dabble in politics, 1925, 26, 27, even while raising her son, even while growing her business. And in 1928, she went to a tea hosted by Eleanor Roosevelt at one of the downtown hotels and met Eleanor Roosevelt. And Eleanor Roosevelt said, young lady, what do you do? And she said, I'm a labor relations and public relations person. Eleanor said, well, maybe my husband can use you

on his team. He's running for governor. So Anna finds herself a couple of days later on the steps of the Roosevelt's twin townhouse. She meets Franklin Roosevelt. And afterwards, you know, and afterwards, you know, as part of a team led by Louis Howe and including Jim Farley and Francis Perkins, Anna Rosenberg becomes part of the team that helps Franklin Roosevelt get across the finish line and become the governor of New York. What Anna did specifically in the governor's race had to do obviously with labor relations. That was her portfolio. But even more specifically, governor's race had to do obviously with labor relations. That was her portfolio. But even more specifically, she made the argument that if the Republicans are going to push back against minimum wages, let's go with minimum wage for women. And there's going to be less pushback. And maybe that's a winning argument. And you know, pregnant women, you have women with children,

you have women that are, you know, struggling, working class women with many burdens to carry. And that turned out to be right. Anna's instinct was right. There was less pushback on that. And that turned out to be part of the winning argument for Franklin Roosevelt as he won the governor's race. Anna catapulted from the child of a wildly patriotic immigrant to the White House and an enthusiastic champion of FDR's New Deal.

In the early 1930s, Franklin Roosevelt's in Washington and launching the New Deal, and one of the pillars was the National Industrial Recovery Act. And this was meant to increase wages and try and get companies and industries to play nice together. And Roosevelt remarkably put Anna in charge of New York State, which of course includes New York City, the most populous, the richest, the home of the most companies. And despite never opening a law book, Anna Rosenberg is drafting codes under the Blue Eagle. She has a staff of hundreds, and she's doing a wonderful job that is up until 1935 when the Supreme Court in the Schechter decision struck down the NARA.

She was too valuable to Roosevelt to let her go back into her PR career. So Roosevelt then met with Anna in the White House. This was one of the very, very first one-on-one meetings that the two had, one of many. And a month later, Anna is named to the same position as the regional director of social security for the state of New York. In this job, with again, a staff of hundreds, field offices throughout the state, Anna Rosenberg signed up six million New Yorkers to this novel program and was very proud to do that. She thought it was democracy and dynamism combined. This is how democracy ought to be, she thought. This is a dynamic program that's improving the lives of literally millions of people almost in real time. And she would have women say to her, don't tell my husband my real age.

Anna said, Uncle Sam and I will keep your secrets. I'm Jenna Fisher. And I'm Angela Kinsey. We are best friends. I'm Jenna Fisher. And I'm Angela Kinsey. We are best friends. And together, we have the podcast Office Ladies, where we rewatched every single episode of The Office with insane behind-the-scenes stories, hilarious guests, and lots of laughs.

Guess who's sitting next to me? Steve! It's Steve Carell in the studio! Every Wednesday, we'll be sharing even more exclusive stories from the office and our friendship with brand new guests. And we'll be digging into our mailbag to answer your questions and comments. So join us for brand new Office Ladies 6.0 episodes every Wednesday. Plus, on Mondays, we are taking a second drink. You can revisit all the Office Ladies rewatch episodes every Monday with new

bonus tidbits before every episode. Well, we can't wait to see you there. Follow and listen to Office Ladies on the free Odyssey app and wherever you get your podcasts. December 7th, 1941 is a day that lives in infamy in our nation, and it officially marked our entrance into World War II. But while Pearl Harbor itself was a surprise, World War II didn't sneak up on FDR. The United States had seen their involvement in the outbreak of war coming, and they did all they could to delay the inevitable. The Department of Defense began preparing far before the first plane struck Hawaii. Since the United States was giving an incredible amount of assistance to Great Britain's war efforts, factories around the country were desperate to hire more workers. factories around the country were desperate to hire more workers. Jobs were posted and Black Americans would apply for them and then not get hired.

By the spring of 1941, a movement was growing and a march on Washington was in the works. It's the summer of 1941 and, you know, Americans know that war is on the horizon. They don't know when, but it's pretty clear that the U.S. is going to be going to war. And defense contracts are starting to be placed. And these are good paying jobs. Ordinance, building tanks, building helmets, everything. Ships. And black Americans are not part of this.

They're not being hired by the defense companies. So A. Philip Randolph and Walter White, the two main black leaders, want an audience with Roosevelt, and they want to get the president to mandate that these defense industries hire black Americans. And he pushes them aside. He pushes them off. He ignores them. And then finally, A. Philip Randolph says, well, we're going to have a march on Washington. It'll be July 4th, 1941. And this really petrifies the president. Washington is a Southern town, Southern mentality, and to have tens of thousands of Black Americans marching is a recipe for potential violence. And the United States can't have this at a time when it's supposed to be showing unity. So it's a very unwelcome

change here. FDR had a delicate political needle to thread between appeasing his northern business leaders and southern Democrat representatives. The last thing he wanted was a march on Washington about discriminatory industrial labor practices. It would make the United States look weak on the world stage. States look weak on the world stage. In a moment of exasperation, he scribbled a giant note that said, get me Anna. And within a few days, he and his cabinet were sitting down with A. Philip Randolph and his associates, with Anna Rosenberg as mediator of the exchange. So Roosevelt summons Eleanor Roosevelt and Anna Rosenberg and says, you know, let's get a deal done with these black leaders. So over a couple of weeks, Anna Rosenberg, both in Washington and New York, talks to A. Philip Randolph and Walter White and acts as a

go-between between the president. Then there's a face-to-face meeting, very dramatic face-to-face meeting. And then Anna is sort of tasked with drafting what becomes Executive Order 8802, which mandates no discrimination in the hiring for defense. And the president's still reluctant to sign it. So Eleanor Roosevelt says to Anna, Anna was a great fan of very expensive, fancy hats. And she was in Washington at the time. Eleanor Roosevelt says to Anna, Anna, go buy yourself a fancy new hat down to one of the boutiques in Georgetown and come back and you'll have the confidence to get President Roosevelt to sign this executive order. And that's what she did. She had it in her purse. She came back to the White House. She walked into the Oval Office and spread the executive order on his desk and said, sign it, Mr. President, sign it.

And Executive Order 8802 and the watchdog provision that was part of it has been called by historians the most significant federal action on race since Reconstruction. Throughout the World War II years, Anna picked up the nickname Seven Job Anna and served on the home front, assisting her president and working with a number of federal agencies like the Office of Defense, Health and Welfare Services, the Retraining and Reemployment Administration, the War Manpower Commission. And she also advised the president on problems arising with returning soldiers. on problems arising with returning soldiers. Anna's involvement in federal labor relations became known as the Rosenberg Plan or the Buffalo Plan. And let me just pause right here and highlight how her involvement in labor relations literally had a direct, measurable, and significant impact on the Allies winning the war. We mentioned in a

previous episode how the United States military was 19th in the world at the outset of World War II. Germany bested us in nearly all of their technology, from rockets to tanks. But what did the United States have that they didn't, aside from Anna Rosenberg? For a variety of reasons, including population and natural resources, we were able to overwhelm the Axis powers with the sheer volume of military equipment we produced. And that would not have been possible without Anna's direct involvement on the labor relations effort that got stuff done. This is later in the war, in the middle of the war, in 42 and 43. There was labor piracy. People were getting tired of working these long hours in the defense industry. Men were leaving the steel mills and the shipyards

to work in the easier conditions of the airplane factories. But that was imperiling contracts. And if you imperil contracts, that means literally lives are at stake on the battlefields around the world. One of the biggest defense zones or areas or regions in the United States was in Buffalo, Niagara region. And they made everything. They made bullets and tanks and parachutes and just a litany of things they were cranking out. But again, these contracts were starting to be defaulted on because of labor issues. So Roosevelt installs Anna Rosenberg as labor czar of Buffalo. And there, she not only has many, many more women joining the factories, making the airplanes and the other armaments, but she has high school kids. She has disabled Americans.

She has greater numbers of black Americans, both men and women. And she tells, you know, the leaders of Buffalo, this is no time for discrimination. It's all hands on deck. And it all works. all hands on deck. And it all works. More than that, though, she comes up with this brilliant plan where you can't change jobs, defense jobs, unless you go through sort of these central planners. And because there was a lot of job shifting, and it was really becoming a problem for the allies and for the United States. You know, we think about the arsenal of democracy as sort of being this monolithic thing that worked brilliantly, but it wasn't. Not in 1942 or 43, there were lots of problems, mostly related to

labor. And Anna Rosenberg's program, called by one magazine the Rosenberg Plan and by others the Buffalo Plan, worked so well, getting labor where it was needed most and preventing labor piracy and other problems, that it was rolled out nationwide and preventing labor piracy and other problems, that it was rolled out nationwide. The so-called Buffalo Plan of Anna Rosenberg really allowed the arsenal of democracy to fire at full thrust for the duration of the war. Throughout this series, we've been talking about the Manhattan Project and the role women played in it.

But we've mostly talked about the science behind the technology. in it. But we've mostly talked about the science behind the technology. Anna Rosenberg was one of the people who made it logistically possible. Over 130,000 people were working in secret sites related to the Manhattan Project. That's more people than could fit in America's largest football stadium, all working on this top secret project that many government officials themselves didn't even know existed. And these workers were keeping the secrets. Much of this mighty workforce didn't even know exactly what they were working on, but they began to mobilize and demand some employment protections and assurances. It was at the labs where people started to be laid off after 60 or 90 day intervals.

Now they were laying off these workers lest they understand what they were building. As Anna said, you know, eventually they're going to figure out two plus two equals four, or they're going to be figuring out they're dealing with a plutonium bomb or a uranium isotope. So they were summarily relieved of their duties. Now, these people were unhappy with this. They were good paying jobs, and they're just let go without any word why. So they wanted to form a union. And the problem with forming a union would be it was a public process, and the secrecy of the atomic bomb program might have been blown. So Roosevelt calls in his Mrs. Fix-It and he says, Anna, I need you to go to these union leaders and have them stand down. Eleanor says to Anna, how can you do that? Unions have always trusted you.

And Anna says, well, the only argument I can really make is that the president has a great track record with unions. They trust him. And it's a question of national security. So she goes to the Met Lab in Chicago and out to Berkeley, and she has conversations with the union leaders. And they say, well, why should we do this? We have the legal right to unionize. And she's able to make the argument that this comes straight from the boss. This is a question of national security, and President Roosevelt wants this done. And they didn't have to do it, but they did agree to put an end to the unionizing efforts at those two locations. And the secrecy, vital secrecy of the atomic bomb was secured.

In 1944, he sent Anna to Europe with an important task. To talk to the soldiers and hear from them about what they wanted out of their post-war lives. And this information contributed to the GI Bill. As he sent her off on missions to Europe, he told her accompanying travel partners, see that she doesn't get hurt. She returned successfully and safely, and he sent her back to Europe in 1945, this time for a much more difficult visit than she experienced even during the midst of fighting when she visited the year before. President Roosevelt's health was in such decline, there was no way he could travel. But he needed a trusted eyewitness account of the atrocities that the Nazi regime had wrought upon the Jews of Europe.

As a Jewish woman herself, Anna summoned all of the fortitude and courage within her to go to a liberated concentration camp. She was one of the very first Allied women to enter. At the end of 1945, the war had ended, FDR had died, and President Harry Truman, recognizing the massive part she had already played in America's story and the war, awarded her the Presidential Medal of Freedom, making her the first woman to ever receive it. She continued to shatter glass ceilings throughout the second half of the 1940s, serving with the American Commission to UNESCO and the Office of War Mobilization and Reconversion. She also reopened her consulting firm, Anna M. Rosenberg Associates. But her biggest glass ceiling smash was about to come

when in 1950, George Marshall nominated her as Assistant Secretary of Defense for Manpower and Personnel, the highest post ever held by a woman in the defense establishment. It also gave her a platform to chair and grow the Defense Advisory Committee on Women in the Services. President Truman said to Marshall, you need to come back to Washington. And, you know, Marshall had been the architect of victory in World War II. You need to come back to Washington, to the Pentagon, and take over the Korean War, which was going very, very badly at the time. Marshall, in turn, writes a handwritten

letter to Anna Rosenberg. Dear Anna, will you please come down to the Pentagon with me and be my number two to rebuild the size and strength of the U.S. Army, which had been decimated by budget cuts. It was a big, big job. Part of her obviously didn't want to leave her son, leave her business that was just rebounding. But being the patriot she was, she said, you know, when General Marshall asked me to come down to Washington, I knew I had to do it. The target number that Marshall had given her and Congress had given her, we got to it. She got the United States Armed Forces up to that number, more than doubled the Army in her 26 months at the Pentagon. And more importantly, made it more equitable in ways that

I describe in the book. But most important of all, she had finally the schools on Army bases desegregated. This was federal money. These were federal installations. But the schools on army bases desegregated. This was federal money. These were federal installations. But the schools on army bases across, well, in the South mostly, remained segregated even despite President Truman's executive order that that not be continued. And Anna Rosenberg twisted some arms and had to have very serious conversations with a lot of

military people and civilian people to get these schools desegregated. But they were desegregated, the armed forces were desegregated before the schools in the country at large. In fact, by 1953, all those bases were desegregated. And of course, Brown v. Board of Education wasn't until the following year in 1954. After her time serving as the highest ranking woman in government, she returned to her firm in 1953. It was now being run by her son, Thomas, and they joined together as partners working with a wide variety of high profile clients, including the Rockefeller family, Marshall Fields, Encyclopedia Britannica,

and the American Hospital Association. Her later years were spent being the involved citizen she'd always been, and serving within the United Nations in various capacities and on the New York Board of Education. When she was in her 80s, she developed cancer and passed away on May 9, 1983. The next day, papers around the entire country ran the headline, High-Ranking Pentagon Official, Advisor to Three Presidents, The Most Influential Woman in the Country's Public Affairs. At the time of her death, she still held the title of having had the highest rank of any other woman in defense. Christopher Gorham's biography, The Confidant, opens with this quote from Anna.

I'm not a crusader or a reformer. There are a lot of things happening. You cannot just sit by watching idly. I decided to do something about it. And if this story isn't the epitome of how one person can change the course of the future. I don't know what is. Huge thank you to author Christopher Gorham, whose book The Confidant is available for pre-order now and releases on February 21st, 2023. It is compellingly written and absolutely fascinating. compellingly written, and absolutely fascinating. Join me next time as we uncover the secrets of one of the war's most decorated women. A woman who escaped death and defied the odds in unimaginable ways.

A woman who helped make the Normandy invasion of France possible. I'll see you soon. Thank you for listening to Hearer's Work. It's interesting. This show is written and researched by Heather Jackson, Sharon McMahon, Valerie Hoback, and Amy Watkin, edited and mixed by our audio producer, Jenny Snyder, and is hosted by me, Sharon McMahon.

We'll see you again soon.