Eleanor Roosevelt

Anna Eleanor Roosevelt (1884-1962), wife of the thirty-second president of the United States, was a philanthropist, author, world diplomat, and resolute champion of liberal causes.

Eleanor Roosevelt was born in New York City on Oct. 11, 1884, into an economically comfortable but troubled family. Her father was Elliott Roosevelt, the younger brother of Theodore Roosevelt, a future president of the United States. Although handsome and charming, Elliott was plagued by frequent mental depressions and by alcoholism. Her mother, beautiful but neurotic, was preoccupied with the family's image in upper-class society and embarrassed by Eleanor's homeliness. Eleanor's father entered a sanitarium for alcoholics when she was a child. When Eleanor was 8 years old, her mother died, and she and two younger brothers went to live with their maternal grandmother in New York. Shortly thereafter the older brother died, and when Eleanor was not yet ten, she learned that her father was dead. Her grandmother sheltered her from all outside contacts except for family acquaintances.

Eleanor Roosevelt began discovering a world beyond the family at Mademoiselle Souvestre's finishing school at South Fields, England, where she went at 15. Mademoiselle Souvestre taught a sense of social service and responsibility, which Eleanor began to act upon after her return to New York. She plunged into social work, but soon her tall, handsome cousin, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, began courting her. They were married in March 1905. She now had to contend with a domineering mother-in-law and a gregarious husband who did not really understand his wife's struggle to overcome shyness and feelings of inadequacy.

Beginnings of a Public Career

Between 1906 and 1916, the Roosevelts had six children, one of whom died in infancy. The family lived at their estate at Hyde Park, from which Franklin pursued his political ambitions in the Democratic party. He served a term in the New York State Senate before President Woodrow Wilson appointed him assistant secretary of the Navy in 1913. Although Eleanor did much Red Cross relief work during World War I and even toured the French battlefields shortly after the armistice, she remained obscure.

A major turning point in Eleanor's life came in 1921, when Franklin contracted polio and permanently lost the use of his legs. Finally asserting her will over her mother-in-law (who insisted that Franklin quietly accept invalidism), Eleanor nursed him back into activity. Within a few years he had regained his strength and political ambitions. Meanwhile, she entered more fully into public life. Speaking and working for the League of Women Voters, the National Consumers' League, the Women's Trade Union League, and the women's division of the New York State Democratic Committee, she not only acted as Franklin's "legs and ears" but began to acquire a certain notoriety of her own. During Franklin's New York governorship she saw the last of her children off to boarding school and kept busy inspecting state hospitals, homes, and prisons for her husband.

President's Wife

Roosevelt's election to the presidency in 1932 meant, as Eleanor later wrote, "the end of any personal life of my own." She quickly became the best-known (and also the most criticized) First Lady in American history. She evoked both intense admiration and intense hatred but almost never passivity or neutrality.

Besides undertaking a syndicated newspaper column and a series of radio broadcasts (the income from which she gave to charity), she traveled back and forth across the country on fact-finding trips for Franklin. She assumed the special role of advocate for those groups of Americans— working women, blacks, youth, tenant farmers—which Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal efforts to combat the Depression tended to neglect. Holding no official position, she felt she could speak more freely on issues than could Roosevelt, and she also became a key contact within the administration for officials seeking the President's support. In short, Eleanor became an intermediary between, on the one hand, the individual citizen and his government and, on the other, the President and much of his administration.

Of particular concern to her was securing equal opportunities for women under the New Deal's work relief projects; ensuring that appropriate employment for writers, artists, musicians, and theater people became an integral part of the Works Progress Administration (WPA) program; promoting the cause of Arthurdale, a farming community built by the Federal government for unemployed miners in West Virginia; and providing work for jobless youth, both white and black (accomplished under the National Youth Administration, set up in 1935). Much more than her husband, she denounced racial oppression and tried to aid the struggle of black Americans toward full citizenship. Largely because of her efforts, African Americans, for the first time since the Reconstruction years, had reason to feel that the national government was interested in their plight.

World Figure

As the United States moved toward war in the late 1930s, Eleanor Roosevelt spoke out forcefully in favor of the adminstration's policy of aiding antifascist governments. She accepted an appointment as deputy director in the Office of Civilian Defense. She applied herself diligently to her new job but proved inefficient as an administrator and resigned in 1942 in the face of growing congressional criticism. That was her first and last official position under Roosevelt. Once the United States formally entered the war, she made numerous trips to England, Europe, and the Pacific area to boost troop morale and to inspect Red Cross facilities.

After Roosevelt's death in April 1945, Eleanor was expected to retire to a quiet, uneventful private life. By the end of the year, however, she was back in public life. President Harry S. Truman appointed her American delegate to the United Nations Commission on Human Rights. As chairman of the Commission, she worked the other delegates overtime to complete the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, adopted by the UN General Assembly in 1948. She remained in her post at the UN through 1952. She became the target for virulent right-wing attacks during the presidential campaign of that year. After the election of Republican Dwight D. Eisenhower, she gave up her UN post, but continued to work for international understanding and cooperation as a representative of the American Association for the United Nations.

During the last decade of her life Eleanor Roosevelt traveled to numerous foreign countries, including two trips to the Soviet Union, and authored several books. She continued to articulate a personal and social outlook which, while never profound and sometimes banal and obtuse, still inspired millions. But by the early 1960s, although she had accepted three new government appointments from President John F. Kennedy (delegate to the U.N., adviser to the Peace Corps, and chairman of the President's Commission on the Status of Women), her strength was waning. She died in New York City on Nov. 6, 1962.

Further Reading

Her candid autobiographical writings are invaluable: This Is My Story (1937); This I Remember (1949); and On My Own (1958). These works are combined with an additional updated chapter in Autobiography (1961). An even more intimate view of Eleanor can be gained from Joseph P. Lash, Eleanor and Franklin: The Story of their Relationship Based on Eleanor Roosevelt's Private Papers (1971) and Eleanor: The Years Alone (1972). Also helpful is Tamara K. Hareven, Eleanor Roosevelt: An American Conscience (1968). James R. Kearney, Anna Eleanor Roosevelt: The Evolution of a Reformer (1968), is less a biography than a topically organized analysis of various facets of Roosevelt's public life. Less critical though useful are Alfred Steinberg, Mrs. R. (1959); Joseph P. Lash, Eleanor Roosevelt: A Friend's Memoir (1965); and Archibald MacLeish, The Eleanor Roosevelt Story (1965). Information about Roosevelt's role in relation to her husband's career is in Frank Freidel's uncompleted biography Franklin D. Roosevelt (3 vols., 1952-1956); Alfred B. Rollins, Roosevelt and Howe (1962); and James MacGregor Burns, Roosevelt: The Lion and the Fox (1963). □

ROOSEVELT, ANNA ELEANOR

Eleanor Roosevelt, wife of U.S. President franklin d. roosevelt (FDR), transformed the role of first lady and influenced the course and content of twentieth-century U.S. politics. During FDR's nearly four terms in office (1933–1945), Roosevelt was an acknowledged political adviser with her own progressive agenda.

Roosevelt was a committed reformer. Born into wealth and privilege, she lent early and conspicuous support to child welfare laws, equal pay and employment legislation, civil rights, and women's rights. Her ideals helped define FDR's new deal and modern Democratic liberalism. Although Roosevelt was admired by many, her high political profile was harshly criticized by people who believed she was too opinionated and influential.

After FDR's death in 1945, Roosevelt continued to support social and benevolent causes throughout the United States and the world. Although no longer first lady, she secured her reputation as a tireless activist and humanitarian. Roosevelt was born on October 11, 1884, in New York City. Her parents, Elliott and Anna Hall Roosevelt, were socially and politically prominent. Her father was the younger brother of U.S. President theodore roosevelt.

Roosevelt's childhood was lonely; she had an emotionally detached mother and a loving but alcoholic father. Both parents died by the time Eleanor was ten years old. A serious, timid child, Roosevelt was sent by her grandmother in 1899 to Allenswood, a private girls' school near London. There she overcame her shyness and became an active, well-liked student. When Roosevelt returned to New York, she entered high society. At the same time, she taught at a settlement house in a New York slum.

Roosevelt married FDR, her distant cousin, on March 17, 1905. Her domineering mother-in-law, Sara Roosevelt, disapproved of Roosevelt and put an immediate strain on the marriage. The couple had six children, five of whom survived to adulthood.

Roosevelt was not fulfilled by running a large household and attending social functions. When FDR was elected to the New York State Senate in 1910, she turned her attention to politics. In time, she discovered her talent for political organization and strategy.

FDR became the assistant secretary of the Navy in 1913. After the United States entered world war i, Roosevelt found an outlet for her tremendous energy, organizing Red Cross efforts and working in military canteens.

In 1918 Roosevelt discovered that FDR was having an affair with her social secretary Lucy Page Mercer. The marriage survived but became a union based primarily on politics, not love.

Roosevelt was determined to carve out her own niche in public service and national affairs. She became active in the League of Women Voters (although she had opposed female suffrage at one time) and the Women's trade union League. She assumed an increasingly active role in Democratic politics. In 1926 Roosevelt opened a furniture company in Hyde Park, New York, to provide jobs for unemployed workers. In 1927 Roosevelt and some colleagues founded the Todhunter School, where she was vice principal and taught government and history.

FDR was the unsuccessful Democratic candidate for vice president in the 1920 U.S. presidential election. In 1921 he contracted poliomyelitis, which left him permanently disabled. Because FDR could no longer walk independently, Roosevelt became his surrogate, filling in for him at meetings, state inspections, and public appearances. Her political skills and confidence grew in her role as FDR's emissary.

FDR was elected governor of New York in 1928. Four years later he became the thirty-second president of the United States, defeating incumbent Republican President herbert hoover. FDR's mandate was to pull the country out of the Great Depression. His economic recovery plan, popularly known as the New Deal, included sweeping, government-sponsored programs that were supported by Roosevelt.

From the outset Roosevelt was a different kind of first lady. Visible and outspoken, she wrote her own newspaper column, entitled "My Day," from 1935 to 1962. She held regular press conferences with female reporters, and insisted on hard news coverage, not society-page trivia. Roosevelt lectured extensively throughout the United States, donating her fees to charity. Most importantly, she was FDR's legs and eyes, describing to him the actual, on-site progress of his social and economic programs.

Roosevelt wielded considerable influence over the development of the New Deal. She openly supported legislation to create the National Youth Administration, a program that provided jobs for young people. Roosevelt worked hard for measures to improve the lives of children, women, unemployed workers, minority groups, and poor people. She also encouraged the appointment of women to key positions within FDR's administration, such as the appointment of frances perkins to secretary of labor.

Roosevelt demonstrated the courage of her convictions. In 1939 she publicly resigned her membership to the elite Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR). The DAR had denied permission to African American singer Marian Anderson to perform in Constitution Hall. Outraged at the group's racism, Roosevelt helped organize an alternate concert for Anderson at the Lincoln Memorial.

Roosevelt served in an official public capacity for a short time. From 1941 to 1942, she was assistant director of the Office of Civilian Defense (OCD). When some of her appointments were criticized, however, Roosevelt stepped down from the position.

The United States' involvement in world war ii meant increased travel for Roosevelt. As a fact finder and a morale booster, she visited U.S. armed forces throughout the world. After the war Roosevelt supported the resettlement of European Jews in newly established Israel.

FDR died of a cerebral hemorrhage on April 12, 1945. After his death Roosevelt remained in the public eye. She was one of the first U.S. delegates to the united nations, appointed by President harry s. truman in December 1945. She served as chair of the Commission on human rights and helped draft the U.N. Declaration of Human Rights.

Roosevelt also remained active in Democratic politics and organized Americans for Democratic Action, a liberal unit within the party. She backed adlai stevenson in his unsuccessful quest for the U.S. presidency in 1952 and 1956 and was a player in the 1952, 1958, and 1960 Democratic conventions. In 1952, with Republican dwight d. eisenhower in the White House, she resigned from the U.N. Democratic President john f. kennedy reappointed her to the post in 1961.

Roosevelt published several books, including This Is My Story (1937), This I Remember (1949), On My Own (1958), and You Learn By Living (1960).

"It is not fair to ask of others what you are not willing to do yourself."
—Eleanor Roosevelt

Roosevelt died in New York City on November 7, 1962.

further readings

Black, Allida M. 1996. Casting Her Own Shadow: Eleanor Roosevelt and the Shaping of Postwar Liberalism. New York: Columbia Univ. Press.

Glendon, Mary Ann. 2001. A World Made New: Eleanor Roosevelt and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. New York: Random House.

Hoff-Wilson, Joan, and Marjorie Lightman. 1984. Without Precedent: The Life and Career of Eleanor Roosevelt. Bloomington: Indiana Univ. Press.

Purcell, Sarah J., and L. Edward Purcell. 2002. The Life and Work of Eleanor Roosevelt. Indianapolis, Ind.: Alpha.

Youngs, J. William T. 2000. Eleanor Roosevelt: A Personal and Public Life. New York: Longman.

Roosevelt, Eleanor (1884–1962), First Lady, humanitarian, social activist.Eleanor Roosevelt (ER) was born in New York City into an affluent, aristocratic, troubled family. Eleanor was eight when her mother Anna died, and ten when her beloved father Elliott died of alcoholism at thirty‐four. She was nurtured and influenced by her maternal grandmother and her paternal uncle Theodore Roosevelt.

Sent to Allenswood school in England at fifteen, Eleanor was inspired by headmistress Marie Souvestre. ER excelled, debated fiercely, made the first team at field hockey, and emerged a leader. But her grandmother insisted that she return to New York City to perform the debutante ritual of “coming out” when she was eighteen. In 1903, surrounded by friends who founded the Junior League as a smart‐set rebellion, including Mary Harriman and Jean Reid, ER taught dancing and calisthenics to the immigrant girls of New York's Lower East Side at their new University Settlement. There she met her mentors and allies, social work pioneers Florence Kelley and Lillian Wald (1867–1940).

Becoming engaged to her fifth cousin Franklin Delano Roosevelt, she introduced him to issues of poverty and struggle; encouraged his Harvard studies; and promoted his ambitions. Their love deepened despite the opposition of his mother, Sara Delano Roosevelt, and they married in 1905. Of their six children, five survived: Anna (1906), James (1907), Elliott (1909), Franklin, Jr. (1914), and John (1916). Sara Delano Roosevelt remained a dominant presence in their lives.

In 1910 FDR was elected to the New York State Assembly, and ER flourished in Albany's political climate. She established important alliances with reform politicians, notably Alfred E. Smith, Robert F. Wagner, and Frances Perkins. In 1913 President Woodrow Wilson named FDR assistant secretary of the navy, and their move to Washington was initially happy. But ER's life felt momentarily derailed when she discovered her husband's affair with her social secretary Lucy Mercer. She offered a divorce, but they agreed to carry on—to repair their hearts, and protect the children and his career. With FDR's nomination for the vice‐presidency in 1920, and ER campaigned fully for the first time.

During that failed effort, she forged a new partnership with Louis Howe, FDR's primary adviser, who became the bridge between them. Together, they battled to keep FDR interested in public life, and promoted his political ambitions during the years of his convalescence from polio. In the 1920s, too, ER became the center of a powerful network of political women in the Democratic party and the new League of Women Voters. With Esther Lape and Elizabeth Read, ER campaigned for the U.S. membership in the World Court. With three partners, Marion Dickerman, Nancy Cook, and Caroline O'Day, she co‐owned Val‐Kill, a model furniture factory two miles from the Roosevelts' Hyde Park, New York, home. After her husband's death, she converted Val‐Kill into her residence. She also taught history and literature and was co‐principal at New York's Todhunter School, and edited the Women's Democratic News. By 1928, when FDR was elected New York State governor, ER was the women's political “boss” of the Democratic party, and a bi‐partisan leader for women's rights and equity.

In 1932 when FDR was elected president, ER's circle was in place to demand patronage, power, and New Deal justice for women. Her work with Mary (Molly) Dewson, secretary of labor Frances Perkins, Ellen Sullivan Woodward, Mary Anderson, Florence Kerr, and Hilda Worthington Smith, successfully enlarged the New Deal's scope. With Mary McLeod Bethune, Walter White, and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), ER battled racial segregation and discrimination. In 1938 she helped launch the Southern Conference on Human Welfare, a network of race radicals dedicated to end the poll tax and all discrimination. In 1939 she resigned from the Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR) when it refused to permit Marian Anderson to perform in the DAR's Constitution Hall in Washington, D.C. Associated Press reporter Lorena Hickok (Hick), ER's intimate friend during the White House years, influenced her career as a writer, encouraged her to hold press conferences for women journalists only, and write a daily column, My Day.

Although ER generally supported her husband's policies, during the 1930s, they differed on such international issues as the World Court, collective security, and the Spanish Civil War. Journalist, editor, and radio broadcaster, ER was the only First Lady to disagree publicly with her husband. In This Troubled World (1938), she offered a point by point alternative to FDR's isolationist policies. On domestic issues FDR encouraged his wife to speak out. If she could “warm up” an issue, he would run with it. Their unique partnership allowed each to do more than either could have achieved alone. In the area of housing, for example, ER in 1934 with the support of her network created a model community, Arthurdale, in West Virginia, that became a prototype for other New Deal model communities.

ER lobbied less successfully for refugees fleeing Nazi persecution. In 1940, she became involved in a covert operation headed by Varian Fry that resulted in the rescue of over 2,000 refugees, including Hannah Arendt, Pablo Casals, Marc Chagall, Wanda Landowska, and Alma Mahler. But the State Department had Fry arrested and terminated the operation in 1941. During World War II, ER citicized the incarceration of Japanese Americans and campaigned for women's rights, civil rights, and the survival of New Deal programs.

Distraught by FDR's death on 12 April 1945 in Warm Springs, Georgia (and dismayed to learn that Lucy Mercer had been with him at the end), ER announced her retirement from public life. But President Harry S. Truman appointed her a delegate to the United Nations and she used the opportunity to carry on her vision of the best of FDR's legacy: a New Deal for the world; dignity for all people. She helped create the UN Declaration of Human Rights, which passed the General Assembly on 10 December 1948, and spent the rest of her life lobbying for the UN, human rights, and nuclear disarmament. In 1961 President John F. Kennedy appointed her chair of his new Commission on the Status of Women, which helped launch the second wave of the women's movement. Her final book Tomorrow Is Now, was published posthumously in 1963. She is buried beside her husband at Hyde Park.
See also Antinuclear Protest Movements; Civil Rights Movement; Federal Government, Executive Branch: The Presidency; Feminism; International Law; Internationalism; New Deal Era, The; Progressive Era; Racism; Settlement Houses; Women's Rights Movements.

Bibliography

Joseph P. Lash , Eleanor and Franklin, 1971.
Joseph P. Lash , Eleanor: The Years Alone, 1972.
Susan Ware , Partner and I: Molly Dewson, Feminism, and New Deal Politics, 1987.
Blanche Wiesen Cook , Eleanor Roosevelt, 1884–1933, 1992.
Allida M. Black , Casting Her Own Shadow, 1997.
Allida M. Black, ed., Courage in a Dangerous World: The Political Writings of Eleanor Roosevelt, 1999.
Blanche Wiesen Cook , Eleanor Roosevelt: The Defining Years, 1933–1938, 1999.

Blanche Wiesen Cook

ROOSEVELT, ELEANOR 1884-1962

First lady of the united states (1933-1945)

Political Influence

Though not an elected or appointed governmental official, Eleanor Roosevelt, wife of President Franklin D. Roosevelt, was a towering figure in the politics of her day. In her travels, lectures, and writing, she promoted a liberal political agenda. Her discussions with her husband and her reports to him on what she had seen and heard on her travels were important in determining Roosevelt's political strategies. James Farley, an important adviser and campaign manager to Roosevelt, called her "the most practical woman I've ever met in politics."

Background

A distant cousin of Franklin D. Roosevelt, Anna Eleanor Roosevelt was born into a patrician family whose history stretched back to the colonial era, but her early life was not an easy one. Both of her parents died when she was a young girl. In 1899 she was sent to London, England, to study at a private boarding school for three years. As she was later to recount, she received intellectual and emotional support from the headmistress at the school. In 1905 she and Franklin Roosevelt married. Soon her life was filled with the demands of five children and a politician husband. During World War I her involvement in organizing a soldiers' canteen and her activities for the Red Cross led to a concern for social welfare that would shape her life's work.

Humanitarian, Feminist, Civil Rights

Activist. Eleanor Roosevelt spoke out, both privately and publicly, on a variety of issues. Though she opposed the Equal Rights Amendment during the 1930s (believing that women needed special protection at work), she was, nevertheless, a powerful force for women's rights. Many historians credit President Roosevelt's appointment of the first woman cabinet member—Secretary of Labor Frances Perkins •—to his wife's influence. The first lady worked for children's rights, showed compassion for working people and the unemployed, and promoted civil rights. "I always looked at everything from the point of view of what I ought to do, rarely from what I wanted to do," she once commented. Beginning in January 1936 she wrote a syndicated newspaper column, My Dayy in which she put a human face on many of the pressing political issues of the day.

Civil Rights for African

Americans. Supporting civil rights for African Americans, Eleanor Roosevelt championed a federal antilynching law and successfully pressed for the appointment of African American activist Mary McLeod Bethune to the National Youth Administration. In 1939, after the Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR) refused to let African American vocalist Marian Anderson rent their Constitution Hall for a concert, the first lady personally invited Anderson to perform at the Lincoln Memorial, where she attracted a crowd of seventy-five thousand people. Eleanor Roosevelt resigned her membership in the DAR over the incident. During World War II she directed her efforts toward helping wounded veterans and Jewish refugees from Hitler's Ger-many. When she died at age seventy-eight, she was mourned by many as "First Lady of the World."

Source:

Joan Hoff-Wilson and Marjorie Lightman, eds., Without Precedent: The Life and Career of Eleanor Roosevelt (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1984)'.

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 Correspondence of Eleanor Roosevelt and Harry S. Truman (2002); A. Black et al., ed., The Eleanor Roosevelt Papers (2 vol., 2009–); 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); H. Rowley, Franklin and Eleanor (2010); M. H. Beasley, Eleanor Roosevelt: Transformative First Lady (2010).

Roosevelt, Anna Eleanor (b. 11 Oct. 1884, d. 7 Nov. 1962). UN diplomat Born in New York City to a wealthy family, and niece of President Theodore Roosevelt, she was educated in England, and in 1905 married her remote cousin Franklin D. Roosevelt. When the latter developed poliomyelitis in 1921, she helped him to overcome the disease and took on many public duties. A strong supporter of New Deal policies, she helped to democratize the White House by her press conferences and her journalism. She built up her own political connections, and became a leading advocate of civil and women's rights. Actively and publicly involved in numerous social projects, from equal rights for minority groups to child welfare and slum clearance, her strong activism and influence during her husband's presidency aroused some criticism. She was also deeply admired by millions of Americans. A delegate to the UN, she was appointed chairperson of the UN Commission on Human Rights (1946–51). As such, she helped draft the Universal Declaration of Human Rights of 1948, and travelled the world tirelessly as a UN representative. She wrote a syndicated and influential column for over twenty years. She also helped found the liberal lobby group Americans for Democratic Action, which became very influential in the Democratic Party.

Roosevelt, [Anna] Eleanor (1884–1962), wife of Franklin D. Roosevelt, was a social welfare worker, lecturer, writer of a newspaper column, My Day, and of books, including It's Up to the Women (1933); This Troubled World (1938); The Moral Basis of Democracy (1940); If You Ask Me (1946), answering readers' questions; India and the Awakening East (1953); and This Is My Story (1937), This I Remember (1949), and On My Own (1958), autobiographies. She was a U.S. representative to the General Assembly of the United Nations (1945–53, 1961–62).

Roosevelt, (Anna) Eleanor (1884–1962) US reformer and humanitarian, wife of Franklin D. Roosevelt. She was a supporter of social causes, including civil rights. She served as US delegate to the UN (1945–52, 1961–62) and chairman of the UN Commission on Human Rights (1946–51).