Galisteo author's book explores Eleanor Roosevelt's screen time

Dec. 15—As a young girl growing up in Indiana and actively searching for role models outside her small town, Angela Beauchamp watched an award-winning 1976 television miniseries, Eleanor and Franklin, about the nation's 32nd president and his wife.

She was 11 at the time, and it sparked a lifelong interest in Eleanor Roosevelt.

"I latched on to the forward-thinking activist ... and have never let go," Beauchamp, who lives in Galisteo, wrote in the preface of her recently published book Eleanor Roosevelt on Screen: The First Lady's Appearances in Film and Television, 1932-1962.

"The mass market paperback of the biography written by Joseph Lash on which the mini-series was based is the oldest book I still own — tattered cover barely attached, and my memories of reading it on the school bus and reaching up to put it into the top shelf of my locker each day are still vivid," Beauchamp wrote in the preface to her book.

Years later, while researching portrayals of women in biographical films and docudramas at the Paley Center for Media in New York, Beauchamp — now an administrator and professor in the Film and Digital Arts Department at the University of New Mexico — said it occurred to her the former first lady's on-screen presence had largely been overlooked by modern scholars.

"After realizing that no one had done significant research on her moving image history, I dove in," Beauchamp wrote in the book's preface.

It's been nearly a century since Franklin Roosevelt took office amid the Great Depression. His wife is credited by many with creating the template for an activist first lady, valued as a key partner to the president in an era when movies, newsreels and the primordial beginnings of television were beginning to mark American life.

As its title suggests, the 227-page book, published Nov. 30 by academic and nonfiction publisher McFarland Books, highlights Eleanor Roosevelt's "savvy use" of the then-new medium of television to advance her activism on issues such as race, labor and women's rights, Beauchamp said.

"In the context of my book, Eleanor is a wonderful example of someone using the media to make the world a better place," Beauchamp wrote. "She was the first woman to host major public affairs broadcast television, and she did this in an effort to advance the causes of world peace and the rights of women and the politically marginalized. I've always been astounded with what [she] was able to accomplish, largely resisting the trivialization or sexualization that plagued most women in the 1930s through the early 1960s."

Beauchamp said she spent a week at the Paley Center as part of her research, which took three years to complete. She viewed archived footage of old television shows in which Roosevelt appeared — including her own productions with titles like Today with Mrs. Roosevelt and Mrs. Roosevelt Meets the Public.

She also appeared as a guest and talked with big names in news and entertainment, including Ed Sullivan, Bob Hope, Frank Sinatra, Mike Wallace and Edward R. Murrow.

Beauchamp said she studied material from multiple sources, including the FDR Library and stories in film and television industry publications like Variety and Photoplay.

Beauchamp has a master's degree in film theory and gender studies from Skidmore College in New York. She said she moved to New Mexico from Boston more than a decade ago. At one time, she worked in international education and travel, coordinating study abroad opportunities for high school students, before changing careers about 13 years ago.

She's currently pursuing a Ph.D in film and television through a "low residency" program at the University of East Anglia in England.

The book is being published by an outlet whose target market is schools and libraries, Beauchamp said. McFarland Books doesn't promote single copy sales, so it's been up to her to try to get her book onto bookstore shelves.

She's currently in discussions with one local book seller, Beauchamp said, "but it's not there yet" so the book is currently available only through online outlets.