Forgotten New Dealer: The amazing, multi-talented Lizzie McDuffie

Above: Elizabeth "Lizzie" McDuffie, 1937. Lizzie worked in the White House, as a cook, maid, and nursemaid to the Roosevelts, from 1933-1945. Lizzie had received a very good education in her youth, and in 1936 she campaigned for FDR's re-election, telling large audiences in the mid-west about New Deal statistics, and the benefit of the WPA and the National Youth Administration to the African American community. Photo from The Atlanta Constitution, July 30, 1937 edition, provided courtesy of Newspapers.com, and used here for educational, non-commercial purposes.


Above: Lizzie had theater and acting experience, and this is how she appeared when she auditioned for the role of "Mammy" for the 1939 film Gone With the Wind. Eleanor Roosevelt wrote a letter of support for Lizzie to get the part. However, the role eventually went to Hattie McDaniel, who won an Oscar for her performance. In modern times, the role and the movie have come under increasing scrutiny for what many feel is a furtherance of racial stereotypes. Photo from The Elizabethton Star (Elizabethton, Tennessee), January 10, 1938 edition, provided courtesy of Newspapers.com, and used here for educational, non-commercial purposes.

Above: Lizzie McDuffie, fourth from left, at the first anniversary of the United Government Employees, a union she helped create, 1937. Photo from the Elizabeth and Irvin McDuffie Papers, Atlanta University Center, Robert W. Woodruff Library, and the Scenic Hudson article, "FDR’s Deft Civil Rights Advocate, Elizabeth McDuffie," used here for educational, non-commercial purposes.

Above: In 1964, Lizzie recalled her time in the White House. Of FDR, she said, "He was a grand, wonderful man." She was at Warm Springs when he passed away on April 12, 1945. Photo and quote from "F.D.R.'s Maid Recalls: Offspring Lively Brood," The Daily Review (Morgan City, Louisiana), June 24, 1964, provided courtesy of Newspapers.com, and used here for educational, non-commercial purposes.

Above: In Atlanta, April 1966, Lizzie received a visit from Franklin Roosevelt, Jr., who was then chairman of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. The reunion was emotional and Lizzie, frail and losing her sight, grasped Roosevelt's hand and said, "Oh, darling boy." When Lizzie had worked in the White House, Roosevelt Jr. was ages 18-30, and he had given Lizzie a photograph of himself, with the words, "To my Mrs. Mac from her boy Franklin, Jr." Elizabeth McDuffie died seven months after this reunion, on November 27, 1966, at the age of 85. Associated Press photo and information, from the Press and Sun-Bulletin (Binghamton, New York), April 12, 1966, provided courtesy of Newspapers.com, and used here for educational, non-commercial purposes.

"[President Roosevelt] said to me ‘For years your people have been hewers of wood and drawers of water, but now they are going to get those rights which are theirs’."

--Lizzie McDuffie, October 1936, on the re-election campaign trail for FDR (“Life as Lived in White House Told By Insider,” The St. Louis Star-Times, October 17, 1936, p. 3)