The legacies of First Ladies Eleanor Roosevelt and Hillary Clinton often have been assessed together based on their historic advocacies in and after their White House tenures.
On Thursday, Hillary Clinton, in an essay written for In Pursuit, imparted a leadership lesson from Eleanor Roosevelt urging people to forgo fear for courage.
In the essay “In the Long Run, Courage Is Easier Than Fear,” Clinton talks about how the wife of President Franklin D. Roosevelt, often referred to by her initials ER, had to confront fear during historic crises and intense social challenges including “two world wars, the Great Depression, the Holocaust, the creation of the atomic bomb, and the rise of the Cold War” as well as human, civil and women’s rights.
“It was not easy or safe work. She had no elected position. The more open she became about her work, the more notice, and ire, she drew,” Clinton writes, adding her advocacy also drew death threats.
During Eleanor Roosevelt’s 12 years as first lady, she traveled as her husband’s eyes and ears speaking with everyday Americans while her husband’s polio limited his own travel. She saw the suffering in “how farmers could not combat the massive dust storms that destroyed farmlands and suffocated livestock. She saw firsthand the discrimination Black Americans faced,” Clinton writes.
Eleanor Roosevelt’s observations, notes Clinton, “taught her how fear and despair could either prompt resentment and wreck communities or inspire brave resilience.”
Hillary Clinton tracked and considered Eleanor Roosevelt’s career, especially while serving as first lady. In her 2003 memoir Living History, Clinton pays tribute to her predecessor in a chapter titled “Conversations With Eleanor,” where she discloses how she would have “imaginary conversations with Mrs. Roosevelt to solicit her advice on a range of subjects.” It was an exercise, the former first lady said, that helped her analyze problems, especially after the historic 1994 midterm elections where Republicans took control of the House and Senate during President Clinton’s first term.
The political upheaval was a setback and Clinton wondered in her book what Eleanor Roosevelt would make of it. “Not much,” she concluded. “You simply had to press on and do the best you could under the circumstances.”
Historian Allida Black, editor emeritus of the Eleanor Roosevelt Papers project at The George Washington University and Director of the Hillary Rodham Clinton Oral History Project at Georgetown University, in a recent interview with Alan Lowe, host of the First Ladies Association for Research and Education podcast American FLOTUS, said Eleanor Roosevelt’s impact on Hillary Clinton could not be underestimated.
“If there’s anybody in the world who understood what it took to be Eleanor Roosevelt, it’s Hillary Clinton,” Black said.
Both women had major careers in their own right, were lightning rods for their husbands, took risks on major legislation and were global figures, Black said. Clinton’s “Human’s Rights Are Women’s Rights” 1995 speech from the Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing and Eleanor Roosevelt’s leadership in establishing The Universal Declaration of Human Rights both inspired global movements.
Eleanor Roosevelt’s charge with the new United Nations charter was to bring a committee made up of 18 nations together to define human rights. The declaration taking its final form and approved in 1948, is something, Clinton writes in the In Pursuit essay, that is debated among nations to this day.
Decades later, old and new challenges persist. And it’s Hillary Clinton who takes a note from Eleanor Roosevelt about how she taught this modern day, former first lady, what “courage looks like.”
Obamas Pay Tribute to Sunny, Family Dog Who Lived 13 Years
In a social media post on Thursday former President Barack Obama and former First Lady Michelle Obama paid tribute to their family dog, Sunny who died at 13 on Wednesday.
“Yesterday, we lost a cherished member of our family,” Mr. Obama said in the post.
The former president went on to share that they welcomed Sunny into their family at the start of his second term in the White House. Sunny joined their first dog, Bo, in the Residence, where the former president said they “had trouble keeping up with her, for Sunny was a force of nature.”
“Athletic and full of boundless energy, she leapt over the hedges on the South Lawn like they weren’t even there, chasing squirrels, birds and anything else that moved. And whereas the way to Bo’s heart usually involved a treat, Sunny was more interested in having us run around with her, roll on the floor with her, or have her belly rubbed for as long as we were willing,” he said.
Obama went on describing how Sunny loved their daughters, Malia and Sasha, and the White House team, who Sunny would often follow around, helping them on the job.
“She had her eccentricities: other than Bo, she preferred people to dogs; she was a loud and sloppy drinker; and despite being a Portuguese Water Dog, she hated getting wet,” he added. “But as far as our family was concerned, she was pretty much perfect.”
The Weekly Wrap
The Weekly Wrap is a collection of headlines from the past week. Some publications have paywalls.
IMO with Michelle Obama and Craig Robinson
H.E.R. on Trusting Her Instincts, Taking Back Control & the Journey Behind Her New Music
Sept. 16, 2026 – Grammy-award H.E.R. joins the show to talk about her new DreamWorks animation film, Forgotten Island, celebrating Filipino culture and what it means to see those stories represented on screen. She reflects on growing up Filipino-American, getting discovered at a young age, and navigating the music industry while learning the business as a young woman. View here
MSNOW
JD Vance Privately Advised Clinton’s 2016 Campaign Against Trump: Vanity Fair
Sept. 16, 2026 – Vanity Fair contributing writer Chris Whipple joins “Morning Joe” to discuss his new feature essay on Vice President JD Vance, his time at Yale Law School and what it reveals about him today. Whipple and the Morning Joe panel discuss some of the revelations from the piece, titled ‘God and Vance at Yale,’ including Whipple’s reporting that Vance privately provided “back-channel” advice to Hillary Clinton’s 2016 campaign. View here
East Wing Magazine
Melania Trump Encourages A.I. in the Classroom with Vigilance
Sept. 15, 2026 – Nearly two years after Hurricane Helene spun a tropical storm through North Carolina’s Ashe County unleashing catastrophic floods killing more than 100 people, the community has come through the devastation and is looking to the future. Read more
East Wing Magazine
Joining Forces for a National First Ladies Day
Sept. 15, 2026 – In a quiet signing ceremony at the national headquarters of the Daughters of the American Revolution in Washington, D.C. last week, leaders from organizations came together with a common mission—to amplify the lives and legacies of American first ladies. Read more
East Wing Magazine
Considering Edith at the Theodore Roosevelt Presidential Library
Sept. 12, 2026 – On July 4, coinciding with the 250th anniversary of the founding of the United States, Edward O’Keefe threw open the doors to the newest presidential library: the Theodore Roosevelt Presidential Library in Medora, North Dakota.
On Wednesday, O’Keefe, the CEO of the Theodore Roosevelt Presidential Library Foundation and author of The Loves of Theodore Roosevelt: The Women Who Created a President, shared that planning process with hundreds of attendees at the White House Historical Association’s 2026 Presidential Sites Summit. O’Keefe sat down with East Wing Magazine and spoke about the wife of the 26th president, First Lady Edith Roosevelt, and her narrative at the new site. View here
Vogue
From Melania to Michelle: The 9/11 Memorial Ceremonies and Somber FLOTUS Fashion
Sept. 12, 2026 – As ceremonies were held across the country to commemorate the 25th anniversary of the September 11 terrorist attacks. America’s current and former first ladies gathered at memorial services in New York and Virginia, where their clothing was, understandably, subdued. But even within the traditional tones of black, brown, navy, and gray, each woman remained distinctly herself. Read more
East Wing Magazine
25 Years Later: Trumps, Former Presidents and First Ladies Mark 9/11
Sept. 11, 2026 – While President Trump and First Lady Melania Trump attended a ceremony commemorating the 25th anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks at the Pentagon, four living former presidents and first ladies joined former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg on Friday in a ceremony honoring the victims of the attacks on the World Trade Center in Lower Manhattan. Read more
East Wing Magazine
On September 11, 2001, Anita McBride’s Instincts Kicked In
Sept. 11, 2026 – Anita McBride was working in the West Wing of the White House when the tragic events of September 11, 2001 unfolded. Not yet as First Lady Laura Bush’s Chief of Staff, but as Special Assistant to the President for White House Management. McBride, chair of the White House Historical Association’s 2026 Presidential Sites Summit, sat down with East Wing Magazine this week during the Washington, D.C., conference recounting some of the terrifying moments from that day 25 years ago and how her instincts kicked in. View here
Women’s Wear Daily
Michelle Obama Sees Stripes at the 2026 U.S. Open
Sept. 11, 2026 – Former First Lady Michelle Obama brought striped style to the 2026 U.S. Open women’s singles semifinals courtesy of Chanel on Thursday night at the USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center in New York City. Read more
East Wing Magazine
Presidential Sites, First Ladies and the Lessons Passed Down
Sept. 11, 2026 – From across the main foyer of the historic Mayflower Hotel in Washington, D.C., Tina Tchen dashed through a crowded breakfast buffet, stopping to greet colleagues before settling in a quiet corner of a mostly empty, subdued conference room. The former chief of staff to First Lady Michelle Obama, now months removed from a decade’s worth of planning for the Obama Presidential Center in Chicago that opened in June, sits preparing to share that experience with hundreds of presidential history-centric storytellers. Read more