Roosevelt and Howe is a joint biography of Franklin D. Roosevelt and one of his principal advisors. Louis Howe was not only FDR's first political aide, but the only one who also became an intimate personal friend. Other than Harry Hopkins in the late 1930s, he was the only advisor whom Roosevelt trusted completely to serve his interests without distracting personal ambition or a shadowy private agenda. This book is the story of their separate early lives, of the rare chances which brought them together and of their totally intertwined careers after 1912.

This book is a study on the so-called dirty-work occupations, the garbage worker. It presents the work of garbagemen as real and significant, examining their daily work activities and work problems as well as exploring how one's status and self-respect in such work might be protected and enhanced.