Eleanor Roosevelt

Eleanor Roosevelt


Eleanor Roosevelt biography: wife of President Franklin Roosevelt and niece of President Teddy Roosevelt, developed from an awkward girl into the most influential first lady of the 20th century. Eleanor Roosevelt was the daughter of Anna and Elliott Roosevelt, who was President Teddy Roosevelt's younger brother. She was born in New York City on October 11, 1884. Her mother died when she was eight and her father passed away when she was ten. Her grandmother sent her to boarding school in England, and this turned a shy, awkward girl into a lady with accomplished social graces. She returned to America for her debut and met distant cousin Franklin Roosevelt at a party. They were married in 1903 and during the next eleven years, Eleanor gave birth to six children, one of whom died in infancy.

After serving in the New York State Senate, Franklin Roosevelt became Assistant Secretary of the Navy in 1913. During this time, Eleanor learned what Washington expected of political wives at that time. In 1918 Roosevelt developed pneumonia, and Eleanor, while assisting with his mail, discovered letters revealing an affair between her husband and her personal secretary. Franklin Roosevelt was offered a divorce by his wife, but he realized the effects to their children, his mistress, and his political future would be devasting, so he initiated a reconciliation. While Eleanor continued to help her husband politically, things were never the same after that. She distanced herself from her domineering mother-in-law and began her own agenda. This was the beginning of her devotion to causes benefitting victims of poverty, prejudice, and war.

In 1921 Franklin had been playing with his children at his newly remodeled New York home, Hyde Park. That night he went to bed with a fever; no one knew right away that he had polio. Franklin Roosevelt would never walk again without the aid of heavy leg braces, crutches, or a cane. Because the main means of mass communication was radio, and because the press looked the other way, Americans were not aware of the extent of his illness.

When she became First Lady in 1933, Eleanor Roosevelt understood social conditions and needs better than any of her predecessors. She became the first President's wife to hold press conferences on her own, give lectures and radio broadcasts, and she even wrote a daily syndicated newspaper column, "My Way." Historians later regarded her as the most influential First Lady of the 20th century.

Americans got to know Hyde Park well. Its small office on its terrace became the summer White House. Many dignitaries were entertained at dinners here. In 1939 Roosevelt deeded Hude Park to the nation as a National Historic Site. In 1940 the Frankin D. Roosevelt Library adjacent to the house was dedicated. The Roosevelts began using the new office in the library, and frequently brought items from their home to be included in the library's archives.

President Franklin Roosevelt died on April 12, 1945, after serving as president longer than anyone else. Eleanor returned to a cottage at Hyde Park. At the request of President Truman, she began her service as an American spokesman at the newly formed United Nations. She resigned in 1953 when Eisenhower became president, and traveled the world giving speeches on behalf of the American Association for the United Nations until her health worsened. Eleanor Roosevelt died November 7, 1962, and is buried next to her husband at Hyde Park.

Eleanor Roosevelt was one of the most well-known First Ladies of the United States.
She was born October 11, 1884 in New York City to Elliot and Anna Hall Roosevelt. By 1894 both of Eleanor’s parents had died. In 1899 Eleanor enrolled at Allenswood School in England. By 1902, just one year after her uncle, Theodore Roosevelt became the President of the United States, Eleanor left Allenswood and made her society debut at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in New York City. A few months later Eleanor became engaged to Franklin Delano Roosevelt, her fifth cousin once removed. She enrolled in the Junior League of New York where she taught calisthenics and dancing to immigrants. She also joined the Consumers' League and investigated working conditions in the garment districts. On March 17, 1905, Franklin and Eleanor were married. By 1910 they had four children, however one died shortly after birth from influenza.

By 1916 Franklin and Eleanor had five children and by 1918, Eleanor had learned that her husband was having an affair with her personal secretary, Lucy Mercer. From that point on in their relationship changed and they were never as close.

In 1920 Eleanor traveled with Franklin on his campaign trail for the vice presidency; she became a member of the new League of Women Voters. Sadly, in 1921 Franklin was paralyzed from polio. It was in 1925 that Franklin built Val-Kill Estate for Eleanor in Hyde Park and Eleanor created the Val-Kill furniture factory along with two friends. She also purchased the Todhunter School, a girls' seminary in New York, where she taught history and government. In 1928 The Democratic National Committee appointed Eleanor director of Bureau of Women's Activities and her husband was elected governor of New York.

By 1932 Franklin D. Roosevelt (FDR) was elected President of the United States and by 1933 Eleanor had become the first wife of a President to hold all-female press conferences.

During the years that followed, Eleanor assisted with the formation of the National Youth Administration, she coordinated meetings between FDR and NAACP leader Walter White to discuss anti-lynching legislation, she coordinated a meeting with FDR and James Farley, head of the Democratic National Committee, and with Molly Dewson, head of the Women's Division of the DNC, to discuss the role of women in political elections. She also published the syndicated column, "My Day." In 1936 FDR ran for and won re-election. It was in 1939 that Eleanor defied segregation laws and sat between whites and blacks at the Southern Conference for Human Welfare in Birmingham, Alabama. Eleanor was also influential with the Army Nurse Corps in convincing it to open its membership to black women.

On July 17, 1940 Eleanor made another first when she gave an impromptu speech at the Democratic National Convention, which helped FDR win an unprecedented third term in office. In 1943 Eleanor toured the South Pacific to boost the soldiers' morale. In this same year, her husband, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, died while staying in Warm Springs, Georgia.

In 1946 Eleanor was elected as head of the United Nations Human Rights Commission, she drafted the Declaration of Human Rights, she initiated the creation of Americans for Democratic Action, a group which focuses on domestic social reform and resistance against Russia, she spoke on "The Struggles for the Rights of Man" during a meeting of the United Nations General Assembly in Paris and she threatened to give her resignation from the UN if Truman did not recognize the newly formed state of Israel.

As late as 1961, when President Kennedy re-appointed Eleanor to the United Nations, she spearheaded an ad hoc Commission of Inquiry into the Administration of Justice in the Freedom Struggle and she monitored the efforts and progress of the fight for civil rights in the United States.

It was in that year that Eleanor Roosevelt died of tuberculosis at the age of seventy-eight.