Hello friends, welcome, welcome to episode 9 in our documentary series How Women One World War Two.

Today's episode is called The Confident, and I can't wait to tell you more about a woman in US government who held a tremendous amount of power.

But whose name you've probably never heard. In fact, Life Magazine said far and away the most important woman in the American government and perhaps the most important official female in the world.

In the world. And I bet you don't yet know Anna Rosenberg.

Let's dive in. I'm Sharon McMahon and here's where it gets interesting.

Anna Rosenberg was discreet. She considered it distasteful when formerly powerful people wrote their memoirs spilling their dirty laundry for all to see.

She preferred to stay behind the scenes acting more as a kingmaker without aspiring to royalty herself.

She was one of FDR's most important domestic advisors.

And in short order, you're going to see how an immigrant girl who sailed under the Statue of Liberty to begin life anew, a girl who never even finished high school.

Would soon be integral to winning World War II.

Author Christopher Gorham, who is a history teacher, came across a picture of Anna Rosenberg a few years ago and was intrigued.

Who was she?

He offered options on an assignment in his class and put Anna Rosenberg on the list of people students could research and profile.

When his students discovered that there wasn't one book on her and next to no information to be found in the library, this only peaked his interest more.

More digging uncovered a treasure trove of documents at the Harvard library and soon. Gorham and his students were in a room being presented with archival material about Anna Rosenberg by librarians wearing silk gloves.

Gorham soon realized that Anna Rosenberg was much more important and much more powerful than he even realized and it was time that someone told her story.

His book The Confident was born.

As the country's resident expert on Anna Rosenberg, we are very grateful to Christopher Gorham for sharing his expertise with us today.

Anna was born in Hungary and when her family was forced to go in search of a fresh start, they immigrated to the United States.

Her family was exiled from Budapest, Hungary by a disagreement that her father had. He had worked for the emperor and the emperor had a disagreement with her father and the next thing he was on a ship to New York.

There were a change of circumstances. The letterer family had been middle class in Budapest and Papa letterer in New York was not.

He took a job in the needle trades and a couple years later was able to call for his family. Anna arrived at Ellis Island, Anna her sister and mother.

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