Allida Black Named 2024 Lewis L. Gould Award Winner
Allida Black Named 2024 Lewis L. Gould Award Winner
Historian 'busts' the stereotype that confined Eleanor Roosevelt and documents Hillary Clinton’s extensive historical record.
When Allida Black first began her scholarly work on former First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt, it was Historian Lewis Gould, she says, who understood exactly what she aimed to accomplish.
At the time, Black was interested in the policies that America’s first ladies supported and influenced over the women’s social and public roles. It was the presidential spouse’s work behind the scenes that shaped policies affecting Americans’ everyday lives and promoted security around the globe that drew her in.
“And [Gould] did not laugh at that,” Black tells East Wing Magazine in a phone interview Monday. “He really stood beside me and supported me as I tried to bust the stereotypes that confined Eleanor Roosevelt into the most sexist category possible, which was a woman of sorrow who turned to the world because she was heartbroken at home–and nothing could be further from the truth about this woman.”
Those early years of encouragement eventually led Black to a renowned career.
She is a Distinguished Fellow at the Rothermere American Institute of the University of Oxford, special adviser and historian to former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and the managing director of the Allenswood Group, LLC, (a collaborative she founded to strengthen democracy through education and civic engagement and to preserve women’s political history). In January 2024, she completed a three-year term as a Visiting Distinguished Scholar at the Miller Center for Public Affairs at the University of Virginia. She founded and co-directed the Hillary Rodham Clinton Oral History Project at the Miller Center, a policy-driven exploration of Clinton’s service as the 67th United States Secretary of State and advises Clinton on her archives and other history-based initiatives.
Black, the author and editor of 10 books, is recognized as the leading expert on Eleanor Roosevelt and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. At The George Washington University, she conceptualized and directed The Eleanor Roosevelt Papers Project, a documentary collection of archival material.
And on Monday, Black received a new distinction by being recognized with the 2024 Lewis L. Gould Award bestowed by the First Ladies Association for Research and Education (FLARE) for her contributions to the field of first ladies studies.
“Allida is so deserving of this award given her long and eminent career of scholarship, research and education increasing our knowledge of the contributions, lives, impact and lasting legacies of U.S. first ladies particularly Eleanor Roosevelt and Hillary Clinton,” says Nancy Kegan Smith, president of FLARE and retired director of the Presidential Materials Division at the National Archives and Records Administration.
Furthermore, Smith says that Black’s work on both former first ladies demonstrates that the women’s roles do not stop when their terms in the White House end.
For Black, though, her early work to dismantle the stereotyped Eleanor Roosevelt propelled her forward in retelling the former first lady’s story. In fact, Roosevelt’s stateside and global contributions prove that the former first lady was not just an idealist, Black noted, but that she knew how to get things done.
“[Those stereotypes] made her seem weak and ineffectual when, in fact, this woman changed the world,” Black says, adding that Roosevelt’s impact as a sitting first lady and in her post-White House years included being involved in social security and the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 that banned oppressive child labor and established a minimum hourly wage; being instrumental in executive order 8802, which desegregated the military; and supporting women in the defense industries with wages, healthcare, daycare and the jobs they could hold.
“And her work on the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, in my opinion, created the most significant document of the last century,” Black says.
When asked about what drew her interest to Clinton, Black’s answer is clear:
“Well, Hillary Clinton is the leader for my lifetime. Period. Full stop.”
Black’s historical and archival work on Clinton is also proof, she says, that individual voices can make a difference.
“The issues that she addresses, the tenacity that she shows, her fierce patriotism and commitment to America and to the women of the world is what I try to emulate in my daily life,” Black says. “Working with [Clinton] is the singular honor of my life.”
At times, Black admits, her work can be a constant pressure to get right. The work that Clinton has done, she says, has been circumscribed and put into boxes by people who think Clinton is the antichrist and by people who think she can do no wrong.
The goal is to get the historical record as accurate and comprehensive as possible not as an interpreter of her life, but as someone tasked with documenting it. That task, as Black describes, involves creating oral histories, collecting papers and records in archives.
It involves moving “beyond the press reports or sensational, quickly written, hastily written, sloppily written accounts of her work through a skewed political lens to try and assemble a historical record that people can use through the ages to assess her work themselves,” she says.
The Lewis L. Gould Award was created by FLARE to recognize those whose scholarship or public-facing work meets the quality, academic rigor and influence that characterized Gould’s distinguished career, according to Iowa State University Historian Stacy Cordery, chair of the Gould Award Committee and FLARE Board member.
Gould is widely known as the pioneer of first ladies scholarly study. He developed the first course on presidential spouses and has authored more than a dozen books.
What FLARE is doing is important, Black says, by trying to move these women outside the cultural box that they’ve been wrapped up in that include depictions that first ladies are “marvelous hostesses” and “gifts to the administration.”
“They are much more than that,” says Black. “They also represent the tension that America still has about women’s proper role.”
For now, Black’s work continues at a pace as fast as Clinton’s work continues to unfold.
“I hope young scholars of public policy will also take the time to explore these women’s influences and that their papers will be as accessible as their husbands,” Black says.