First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt at Slum Clearance Meeting

In this photograph, taken on December 1, 1935, First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt shakes hands with Norman Thomas, the head of the Socialist Party, while seated next to Mary Kingsbury Simkhovitch, the president of the National Public Housing Conference. Roosevelt was an honored guest at the legislative campaign luncheon of the National Public Housing Conference held at the Hotel Commodore in New York City on the subject of slum clearance. Slum clearance and low-rent housing were central issues of New Deal housing reforms then being debated in Congress.