Not long before Franklin D. Roosevelt took the presidential oath in March 1933, his wife Eleanor had told reporters that as first lady she was "just going to be plain, ordinary Mrs. Roosevelt. And that's all." The promise was not long kept. Soon Eleanor Roosevelt was deeply engrossed in the politics of her husband's New Deal. After touring the nation's depression-ridden communities, she returned to Washington to promote federally sponsored planned communities. She made speeches and gave press conferences where she addressed such matters as child labor and sweatshops. Most important, she was her husband's conscience, urging him toward some measures that he might otherwise have avoided in the name of political expedience. As she herself put it after FDR's death, "I think I sometimes acted as a spur even though the spurring was not always welcome."

Roosevelt's portrait by Lotte Jacobi has an unforced, conversational quality that reflected Jacobi's aversion to making her subjects fit into any preconceived artistic agendas. "My style," she once said, "is the style of the people I photograph."