Esther Lape was born in Wilmington, Delaware, on October
8, 1881. A graduate of Wellesley College, Esther Lape taught
English at Swarthmore College in Pennsylvania, the University
of Arizona, and Barnard College in New York City. She was
well known as a journalist, researcher, and publicist. Lape
was also associated with the Women's
Trade Union League and one of the founders of the League
of Women Voters. Her life-partner was the scholar and lawyer,
Elizabeth Read, who was
ER's personal attorney and financial advisor. Together Read
and Lape published the journal City, State and Nation.
It was through Read that ER met Lape and a professional
relationship between Lape, Read, and ER was established
in 1920. The relationship sprang from ER's work as the director
of the League of Women Voters' national legislation committee.
In this capacity, ER was aided by weekly meetings with Read.
During these meetings, Read would provide ER a marked-up
copy of the Congressional Record and together they
discussed possible league activities.
Later in 1921, the three women became close friends, meeting
several evenings a week in Greenwich Village as part of
the New Women movement, which focused on political power
and economic change. In 1923, working with ER, Lape administered
the competition for the Bok
Peace Prize. From this work, Lape published twenty of
the most interesting proposals from the competition and
wrote an introductory analysis. Lape's analysis received
great praise. However, in January 1924, the Senate began
investigating charges that the Bok Peace Prize was the tool
of "foreign governments or foreign institutions." Lape testified
before the Senate and identified ER and
Narcissa Vanderlip as two of the most influential members
of the selection committee. The hearings were suspended
because of President
Wilson's death and never
brought up again. Throughout the 1920s, Lape continued to
work in international affairs, in particular in support
of U.S. participation in the World
Court.
During the 1930s, Lape and ER conferred regularly on political
issues, including U.S. recognition of the Soviet Union and
the failure of the 1935 Social Security Act to address health
care. World War II pulled
health care issues away from the forefront of both the administration
and the Congress. Yet, Lape continued her crusade for better
health care and in 1955 wrote Medical Research: A Midcentury
Survey. This work was sponsored by the American Foundation,
when ER was a board member.
Together, Read, Lape, and ER would remain not only dedicated
to political issues but stalwart friends, as well. As first
lady, ER rented a small apartment in a building owned by
Lape and Read in Greenwich Village. ER used this apartment
to escape the pressures of her public position and in order
to spend time with her friends. Lape and Read also owned
a country home in Westbrook, Connecticut, known as Salt
Meadow. ER also spent time there as well, often writing
her "My Day" column.
After Read's death in 1943, ER remained friends with Lape
and visited her often up until ER's own death in 1962. In
1965, Lape, along with others, asked the Nobel Committee
to consider posthumously awarding ER the Peace Prize. However,
the prize that year went to UNICEF. In her later years,
Lape served as a source of information for Joseph Lash's
biographies on ER. Lape died on May 17, 1981 in New York
City.
Sources:
Beasley, Maurine, Holly C. Schulman and Henry R. Beasley,
eds. The Eleanor Roosevelt Encyclopedia. Westport,
CT: Greenwood Press, 2001, 301-4.
Cook, Blanche Wiesen. Eleanor Roosevelt: Volume One,
1884-1933. New York: Viking Press, 1992, 292-293, 342-346.