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Anna Eleanor Roosevelt
b.11 Oct 1884 New York City, New York, United States
d.7 Nov 1962 New York City, New York, United States
Family tree▼ (edit)
m. 1 Dec 1883
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m. 1905
Facts and Events
[edit] Public Life
Anna Eleanor Roosevelt (; October 11, 1884 – November 7, 1962) was the longest-serving First Lady of the United States, holding the post from 1933 to 1945 during her husband Franklin D. Roosevelt's four terms in office. President Harry S. Truman later nicknamed her the "First Lady of the World" in tribute to her human rights achievements. Born into a wealthy and well-connected New York family, the Roosevelts, Eleanor had an unhappy childhood, suffering the deaths of both parents and one of her brothers at a young age. At 15, she attended Allenwood Academy in London, and was deeply influenced by feminist headmistress Marie Souvestre. Returning to the US, she married Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1905. The Roosevelts' marriage was complicated from the beginning by Franklin's controlling mother, and after discovering Franklin's affair with Lucy Mercer in 1918, Eleanor resolved to seek fulfillment in a public life of her own. She persuaded Franklin to stay in politics following his partial paralysis from polio, and began to give speeches and campaign in his place. After Franklin's election as Governor of New York, Eleanor regularly made public appearances on his behalf. Though widely respected in her later years, Roosevelt was a controversial First Lady for her outspokenness, particularly for her stands on racial issues. She was the first presidential spouse to hold press conferences, write a syndicated newspaper column, and speak at a national convention; on a few occasions, she publicly disagreed with her husband's policies. She launched an experimental community at Arthurdale, West Virginia for the families of unemployed miners, later widely regarded as a failure. She advocated for expanded roles for women in the workplace, the civil rights of African Americans and Japanese Americans, and the rights of World War II refugees. Following her husband's death, Eleanor remained active in politics for the rest of her life. She pressed the US to join and support the United Nations and became one of its first delegates. She served as the first chair of the UN Commission on Human Rights, and oversaw the drafting of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Later she chaired the John F. Kennedy administration's Presidential Commission on the Status of Women. By her death, she was regarded as "one of the most esteemed women in the world" and "the object of almost universal respect". In 1999, she was ranked in the top ten of Gallup's List of Most Widely Admired People of the 20th Century. [edit] Family LifeEleanor's parents died when she was a child, and she was raised by her maternal grandmother Mary Ludlow Hall. After finishing school in England, she returned to New York and worked as a social worker on New York's East Side. She met future President Franklin Roosevelt, her father's fifth cousin (through common ancestors Nicholas and Heyeltje Roosevelt), in 1902 when she was 17 and he was a 20-year-old Harvard student. They courted despite his mother's resentment, and were married in 1905. They lived in New York City until Franklin was elected to the state senate in 1911, and they then moved to Albany. They had six children between 1906 and 1916. References
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