Jan Jarboe Russell has 3 audiobooks on Listento.it, narrated by 2 narrators. The most-rated is The Train to Crystal City.
Eleanor in the Village
Summary
A vivid and incisive account of a mostly unknown yet critical chapter in the life of Eleanor Roosevelt - when she moved to New York’s Greenwich Village, shed her high-born conformity, and became the progressive leader who pushed for change as America’s first lady. Hundreds of books have been written about FDR and Eleanor, both together and separately, but yet she remains a compelling and elusive figure. And, not much is known about why in 1920, Eleanor suddenly abandoned her duties as a mother of five and moved to Greenwich Village, then the symbol of all forms of transgressive freedom - communism, homosexuality, interracial relationships, and subversive political activity. Now, in this fascinating, in-depth portrait, Jan Russell pulls back the curtain on Eleanor’s life to reveal the motivations and desires that drew her to the Village and how her time there changed her political outlook. A captivating blend of personal history detailing Eleanor’s struggle with issues of marriage, motherhood, financial independence, and femininity, and a vibrant portrait of one of the most famous neighborhoods in the world, this unique work examines the ways that the sensibility, mood, and various inhabitants of the neighborhood influenced the first lady’s perception of herself and shaped her political views over four decades, up to her death in 1962. When Eleanor moved there, the Village was a neighborhood of rogues and outcasts, a zone of Bohemians, misfits, and artists. But there was also freedom there, a miniature society where personal idiosyncrasy could flourish. Eleanor joined the cohort of what then was called “The New Women” in Greenwich Village. Unlike the flappers in the 1920s, the New Women had a much more serious agenda, organizing for social change - unions for workers, equal pay, protection for child workers - and they insisted on their own sexual freedom. These women often disagreed about politics - some, like Eleanor, were Democrats, others Republicans, Socialists, and Communists. Even after moving into the White House, Eleanor retained connections to the Village, ultimately purchasing an apartment in Washington Square where she lived during World War II and in the aftermath of Roosevelt’s death in 1945. Including the major historical moments that served as a backdrop for Eleanor’s time in the Village, this remarkable work offers new insights into Eleanor’s transformation - emotionally, politically, and sexually - and provides us with the missing chapter in an extraordinary life.
©2021 Jan Jarboe Russell. All rights reserved. (P)2021 Simon & Schuster, Inc. All rights reserved.
Lady Bird
Summary
A revealing biography of Lady Bird Johnson with startling new insights into her marriage to Lyndon Baines Johnson and her unexpectedly strong impact on his presidency. Long obscured by her husband's shadow, Claudia "Lady Bird" Johnson emerges in this first comprehensive biography as a figure of surprising influence and the centering force for LBJ, a man who suffered from extreme mood swings and desperately needed someone to help control his darker impulses. Expertly researched and written, Lady Bird draws from rare conversations with the former first lady and from interviews with key members of Johnson's inner circle of friends, family, and advisers. With chapters such as "Motherless Child", "A Ten-Week Affair", and "LBJ's Midlife Crisis", Lady Bird sheds new light on Mrs. Johnson's childhood, on her amazing acumen as a businesswoman, and on the central role she played in her husband's life and political career. A vital link to the Kennedys during LBJ's uneasy tenure as vice president and a voice of conscience on civil rights, Lady Bird is portrayed here as a political force, strikingly different from the somewhat minor figure depicted in previous works on LBJ. Especially fascinating today, in light of the enormous attention now focused on the private lives of our leaders, are the personal details about her marriage to a man whose extramarital affairs were widely discussed. In this intimate portrait, Russell shows us the private Lady Bird - not only a passionate conservationist but a remarkable woman who greatly influenced her husband, his administration, and the country.
©1999 Jan Jarboe Russell (P)2015 Recorded Books
The Train to Crystal City
Summary
The dramatic and never-before-told story of a secret FDR-approved American internment camp in Texas during World War II, where thousands of families - many US citizens - were incarcerated. From 1942 to 1948, trains delivered thousands of civilians from the United States and Latin America to Crystal City, Texas, a small desert town at the southern tip of Texas. The trains carried Japanese, German, and Italian immigrants, and their American-born children. The only family internment camp during World War II, Crystal City was the center of a government prisoner exchange program called "quiet passage". During the course of the war, hundreds of prisoners in Crystal City, including their American-born children, were exchanged for other more important Americans - diplomats, businessmen, soldiers, physicians, and missionaries - behind enemy lines in Japan and Germany. Focusing her story on two American-born teenage girls who were interned, author Jan Jarboe Russell uncovers the details of their years spent in the camp; the struggles of their fathers; their families' subsequent journeys to war-devastated Germany and Japan; and their years-long attempt to survive and return to the United States, transformed from incarcerated enemies to American loyalists. Their stories of day-to-day life at the camp, from the 10-foot high security fence to the armed guards, daily roll call, and censored mail, have never been told. Combining big-picture World War II history with a little-known event in American history that has long been kept quiet, The Train to Crystal City reveals the war-time hysteria against the Japanese and Germans in America, the secrets of FDR's tactics to rescue high-profile POWs in Germany and Japan, and how the definition of American citizenship changed under the pressure of war.
©2015 Jan Jarboe Russell (P)2015 Recorded Books