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17 Eleanor Roosevelt insisted that the nation’s youth
deserved the government’s help as much as any other
group. Because she received an overwhelming volume of
mail, she was unable to respond in the very personal ways

the letter writers hoped. Instead, as First Lady, she used
her considerable influence and popularity to crusade for
expanded federal aid to poor children and teens. “I have
moments of real terror when I think we might be losing
this generation,” she said. “We have got to bring these

young people into the active life of the community.”

18 Mrs. Roosevelt pressed government leaders to set
up a special agency for young Americans who were

still in school. Finally, she persuaded her husband,
Franklin D. Roosevelt, to issue an executive order in
1935 creating the National Youth Administration
(NYA). And she insisted that the new agency
administer aid without discrimination, so that it

reached blacks as well as whites, girls as well as boys.

19 The NYA provided grants to help Depression-
squeezed young people stay in school. Under this

program, high-school and college students were paid to
work part-time in libraries and as research assistants. For
many of these students, an NYA job meant the difference
between staying in school and dropping out. Between
1936 and 1943, more than two million low-income

students were able to continue their education through
NYA work-study jobs. Another two and a half million
youths were employed by the NYA in its after-school

work-relief projects.

Eleanor Roosevelt at White Top
Mountain, Virginia, August insisted If you insisted that something should be done, you said
1933. During her first year in so firmly and refused to give up.
crusade If you crusade for something, you work hard to make
the White House, she received
sure it succeeds.
more than 300,000 letters,
administer When you administer something, you take
many of them from children. responsibility for supervising or managing it.

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