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Original Exhibition Caption: In August 1938, Eleanor Roosevelt included a glowing endorsement of Richard Wright's short story collection, Uncle Tom's Children (1938) in her My Day newspaper column. In this thank you letter, Wright asks if he could use her name on his application for a Guggenheim Fellowship to support his work on "a long novel dealing with Negro juvenile delinquency." ER's handwritten note indicates she would grant permission. It reads: "Certainly you may use my name. I had better sign so he can share." Wright later wrote to thank her, noting, "I hope the novel upon which I am now working will justify your kind faith in me." Wright won the fellowship, which enabled him to complete work on his acclaimed best-selling novel Native Son (1940).
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