Eleanor Roosevelt

Eleanor Roosevelt (Anna Eleanor Roosevelt) , 1884-1962, American humanitarian, b. New York City. The daughter of Elliott Roosevelt and niece of Theodore Roosevelt , she was an active worker in social causes before she married (1905) Franklin Delano Roosevelt , a distant cousin. She retained these interests after marriage and while rearing her five children.

When Franklin Roosevelt was stricken (1921) with poliomyelitis, she took a more active interest in public issues in order to restore his links with the world of politics. As wife of the governor of New York and then as wife of the U.S. president, she played a leading part in women's organizations and was active in encouraging youth movements, in promoting consumer welfare, in working for the civil rights of minorities, and in combating poor housing and unemployment. In 1933 she conducted the first press conference ever held by a U.S. president's wife. An accomplished writer, she initiated (1935) a daily column, "My Day," syndicated in many newspapers. She also for a time conducted a radio program, and she traveled around the country, lecturing, observing conditions, and furthering causes. In World War II she was (1941-42) assistant director of the Office of Civilian Defense. She also visited Great Britain (1942), the SW Pacific (1943), and the Caribbean (1944).

From 1945 to 1953 (and again in 1961) she was a U.S. delegate to the United Nations, and in 1946 she was made chair of the Commission on Human Rights, a subsidiary of the UN Economic and Social Council. In that capacity, she was a key figure in the creation of the groundbreaking Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948). In the 1950s she became a leader of the liberal wing of the Democratic party. With Herbert H. Lehman and Thomas K. Finletter, she headed a movement in New York City to wrest control of Democratic policy from Tammany Hall. Her dedication to the cause of human welfare won her affection and honor throughout the world as well as the respect of many of her critics. Many of her magazine and newspaper articles have been collected. Her other writings include The Moral Basis of Democracy (1940) and You Can Learn by Living (1960).

Bibliography: See her This Is My Story (1937), This I Remember (1949), On My Own (1958), and The Autobiography of Eleanor Roosevelt (1961); S. Neal, ed., Eleanor and Harry: The Corresondence of Eleanor Roosevelt and Harry S. Truman (2002); biographies by T. K. Hareven (1968), J. R. Kearney (1968), J. P. Lash (2 vol., 1971-72), and B. W. Cook (2 vol., 1997-99); M. A. Glendon, A World Made New: Eleanor Roosevelt and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (2001).

Roosevelt, Eleanor (1884–1962), first lady, diplomat, journalist, and activist.Eleanor Roosevelt struggled to reconcile an intense abhorrence of war with a realpolitik commitment against totalitarianism. This caused her to weigh deeply held but often conflicting beliefs. In World War I, as wife of Assistant Secretary of the Navy Franklin D. Roosevelt, she worked with shell‐shocked sailors at St. Elizabeth's Hospital and the American Red Cross Canteen, and this introduced her to some of the ravages of war. Later she joined the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom and chaired the Bok Peace Prize Committee. Her second monograph, This Troubled World, was a plea for economic deterrence instead of war. However, by late 1939, Adolf Hitler's actions led her to support U.S. military intervention in World War II. As the wife of the president, she urged women to enlist and join defense industries, corresponded with hundreds of military personnel, and used her daily newspaper column to defend the war effort while supporting civil liberties at home. She was a strong critic of Japanese American internment and the administration's policy of limiting the acceptance of refugees, and publicly supported those conscientious objectors who chose medical service and jail over enlistment.

After her husband's death in office in April 1945, as the European War ended, the former first lady urged full employment, a comprehensive veterans benefit package, and a strong United Nations. She supported the atomic bombing of Hiroshima but was silent about Nagasaki. Appointed a UN delegate by President Harry S. Truman, she orchestrated support for the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and oversaw refugee policy. Opposing Truman, she urged early recognition of Israel and UN oversight of the Marshall Plan, and only reluctantly supported the creation of NATO. As the Cold War intensified in the 1950s, she supported an economic rather than a military emphasis on containment, and in the 1960s, she opposed U.S. military involvement in Vietnam and lobbied against the stockpiling of nuclear weapons. She died still convinced that effective democracy was the most effective deterrence to both communism and war.
[See also Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Bombings of; Japanese‐American Internment Cases; World War II: Military and Diplomatic Course.]

Bibliography

Allida Black , Casting Her Own Shadow: Eleanor Roosevelt and the Shaping of Postwar Liberalism, 1996.
Allida Black, ed., Courage in a Dangerous World: Political Writings of Eleanor Roosevelt, 1999.

Allida Black