Eleanor Roosevelt

Anna Eleanor Roosevelt was born in New York City on October 11, 1884. Her father, Elliott Roosevelt, was the younger brother of Theodore RooseveltTheodore RooseveltTheodore Roosevelt (1858–1919) was an American Republican politician, writer, naturalist, and soldier who served as the 26th President of the United States from 1901 to 1909 and received the 1906 Nobel Peace Prize for mediating an end to the Russo-Japanese War.Open the full entry; her mother, Anna Hall, was a member of the Livingston family.⁠[1]

Her mother died in 1892 and her father in 1894, after which she lived with her grandmother, Mrs. Valentine G. Hall, in Tivoli, New York. Educated by private tutors until the age of 15, she then attended Allenswood, a girls’ school in England, where the headmistress, Marie Souvestre, strongly influenced her; she later described her three years there as the happiest time of her life.⁠[1][2]

In 1902, at 18, she returned to New York, where she did social service work, joined the Junior League and taught at the Rivington Street Settlement House.⁠[1][2]

On March 17, 1905, in New York City, she married her fifth cousin Franklin D. Roosevelt.⁠[1][2]

In 1911 Franklin D. Roosevelt won a seat in the New York Senate and the family moved to Albany; in 1913 he became assistant secretary of the navy and they moved to Washington, D.C. During World War I she worked with the American Red Cross and volunteered in Navy hospitals, saying she loved the work and “simply ate it up.” In 1920 she campaigned with her husband in his unsuccessful run for vice president.⁠[2][1]

After her husband was stricken with polio in 1921, she became more active in politics, working with the League of Women Voters, the Women’s Trade Union League and the Women’s Division of the New York State Democratic Committee. She helped found Val-Kill Industries, a nonprofit furniture factory in Hyde Park, and taught at the Todhunter School in New York City. The oldest part of the Val-Kill building was completed in 1926 as the factory, was enlarged in 1928, 1929 and 1932, and was converted by her into a house in 1937.⁠[1][3][2]

She was first lady from 1933 to 1945, telling the public not to expect a symbol of elegance but “plain, ordinary Mrs. Roosevelt.” In 1933 she became the first first lady to hold her own press conference, which admitted only women reporters. She traveled widely on her husband’s behalf, earning the nickname “the President’s eyes, ears and legs.”⁠[1][2]

From 1935 until her death in 1962 she wrote the daily syndicated newspaper column “My Day”; BritannicaEncyclopædia BritannicaEncyclopædia Britannica is a general English-language encyclopedia first published in Edinburgh, Scotland, in 1768; the name also refers to its publisher, Chicago-based Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. (which presents itself as The Britannica Group). The print edition ended in 2012, and the company’s main businesses since then have been the online encyclopedia Britannica.com, digital education products for schools and libraries, and Merriam-Webster dictionaries.Open the full entry gives the starting year as 1936.⁠[1][2]

In 1939, when the Daughters of the American Revolution refused to let the African American singer Marian Anderson perform at its Constitution Hall, she resigned her membership in protest; the concert was held at the Lincoln Memorial instead.⁠[1][2]

During World War II she served as assistant director of the Office of Civilian Defense from 1941 to 1942 and visited England and the South Pacific. Franklin D. Roosevelt died on April 12, 1945.⁠[1]

In 1945 President Harry S. TrumanHarry S. TrumanHarry S. Truman (1884–1972) was an American politician who served as a U.S. senator from Missouri and as vice president in 1945, succeeding Franklin D. Roosevelt on his death that year and serving as the 33rd president of the United States from 1945 to 1953, a period spanning the end of World War II and the early Cold War.Open the full entry appointed her a United States delegate to the United Nations. From 1946 to 1951 she chaired the UN Commission on Human Rights.⁠[2][1]

The Commission had 18 members and first met in early 1947; a drafting committee of members from eight states then took up the work, chaired by her and including René Cassin of France, who composed the first draft, Charles Malik of Lebanon, the rapporteur, Peng Chung Chang of China, the vice-chairman, and John Humphrey of Canada, director of the UN Human Rights Division, who prepared the blueprint. The United Nations describes her as the “driving force” behind the Declaration’s adoption. On December 10, 1948, meeting in Paris, the General Assembly adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights as resolution 217 A (III), with eight countries abstaining and none voting against.⁠[4][1]

She worked for the Democratic presidential nominee Adlai Stevenson in 1952 and 1956. In 1953 she resigned from the U.S. delegation to the United Nations so that President Dwight D. EisenhowerDwight D. EisenhowerDwight D. Eisenhower (1890–1969) was an American army general and politician who served as supreme commander of Allied forces in western Europe during World War II and as the 34th president of the United States, a Republican, from 1953 to 1961.Open the full entry could appoint his own representative.⁠[2][1]

In 1961 President John F. KennedyJohn F. KennedyJohn F. Kennedy (1917–1963) was an American politician who represented Massachusetts in the U.S. House of Representatives and the U.S. Senate and served as the 35th president of the United States from 1961 to 1963. The youngest person elected president and the first Roman Catholic to hold the office, he was assassinated in Dallas on November 22, 1963.Open the full entry reappointed her to the United Nations, named her to the National Advisory Committee of the Peace Corps and made her chair of the President’s Commission on the Status of Women, a post she held until shortly before her death.⁠[1][2]

Eleanor Roosevelt died in New York City on November 7, 1962; Britannica gives the cause as a rare form of tuberculosis and notes that her last “My Day” column had appeared weeks earlier. She was buried in the Rose Garden at the Home of Franklin D. Roosevelt National Historic Site in Hyde Park, New York.⁠[1][2]

Between 1906 and 1916 she and Franklin D. Roosevelt had six children: Anna Eleanor (1906–1975), James (1907–1991), Franklin Delano Jr. (1909, who died in infancy), Elliott (1910–1990), Franklin Jr. (1914–1988) and John (1916–1981).⁠[1][2]

Besides the “My Day” column, she was a sought-after speaker, made use of television and wrote many articles and books, including a multi-volume autobiography.⁠[1]

In 1977 Congress established the Eleanor Roosevelt National Historic Site, preserving her Val-Kill home in Hyde Park.⁠[3]

The Britannica article judges that in her time she was “one of the world’s most widely admired and powerful women” and that her legacy became the standard against which all her successors would be judged; it also notes that opponents mocked her unusual activities with “Eleanor jokes.”⁠[2]

Eleanor Roosevelt National Historic Site: Official website: https://home.nps.gov/elro/index.htm (opens in a new window).⁠[3]

United Nations: Official website: https://www.un.org/ (opens in a new window).⁠[4]