Rye City Council - Agenda for January 16, 2008

Tune in to the City Council meeting live on Channel 75 at 8pm this Wednesday, January 16th, 2008 on cable for the commercial free action.

The twenty two items on the agenda include various committee appointments, the franchise agreement with Cablevision, the Boston Post Road lane reduction project and a meeting schedule for the rest of the year.

The City Council will also vote on a resolution naming the Rye post office in honor of Caroline O'Day.

Who is this cool lady?

After meeting her husband, oil man Daniel O'Day, in Europe, the two returned to New York to marry in 1901. After her husband's death in 1916, O'Day busied herself in social causes including the New York Consumer's League, the Women's Trade Union League, and the Democratic party. She also served on the Rye School Board.

She worked with Eleanor Roosevelt in various social causes and supported Franklin D. Roosevelt's presidential campaign in 1932. In turn, the Roosevelts supported her run for Congress in 1934. Eleanor Roosevelt served as her finance chairperson, the first time in history a first lady had supported a Congressional candidate. Time Magazine described O'Day during her run for Congress in the fall of 1934:

"In Washington, Mrs. Roosevelt announced that she would head Mrs. O'Day's finance committee, take the stump for five speeches in her behalf. Never before in White House history had a First Lady stepped into a Congressional election fight. Said Mrs. Roosevelt: "I know it is rather unusual. ... I am doing it because I have worked for many years under Mrs. O'Day."

Caroline Goodwin O'Day, 59, is tall, florid, greying, a dozen years a widow. Daughter of a Georgia planter, she went abroad to study art in the 1890s, met & married the son of a Standard Oil vice president. Installed in a fine mansion at Rye, N. Y., she soon found that managing a household and rearing three children by no means exhausted her energies. Down to Manhattan went she to work in famed Henry Street Settlement, interest herself in women factory workers. For 13 payless years she has never missed a meeting of New York's State Welfare Board."

O'Day went on to win her seat in Congress, becoming one of the most prominent women in that elected body. She served four terms.

More information on Caroline Love Goodwin O'Day: Wikipedia, National Park Service, Congress.