Lorena Hickok

Who was Lorena Hickok?

Lorena Alice Hickok was an American journalist known for her close relationship with First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt.

Born in Wisconsin to a dressmaker and a farmer who made butter, Hickok had an unhappy childhood marked by isolation and abuse. After her mother's death when Hickok was fourteen, she left home, worked on her own, and completed high school with the help of a cousin. She went into journalism after failing out of college, and soon became a successful reporter for the Minneapolis Tribune and the Associated Press, achieving several firsts for American women journalists. By 1932, she had become the nation's best-known female reporter.

After being assigned to cover Roosevelt during her husband's first presidential campaign, Hickok struck up a close relationship with the soon-to-be First Lady. For several years following, the two corresponded almost every day, traveled together, and professed emotional and physical affection for one another. The exact nature of this relationship has been widely discussed by historians; some have argued that the relationship was clearly romantic or erotic, while others have argued that historians have been misled by Roosevelt's exuberant letters. More than 3,000 letters from the pair's correspondence are preserved at the Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library and Museum.