Eleanor Roosevelt Biography

Anna Eleanor Roosevelt was born on October 11, 1884 and died on November 7, 1962.  She is best known for being the first lady of the United States from 1933 until 1945.  She was a supporter of the New Deal through her husband, President Franklin D. Roosevelt, and she was also a civil rights activist.  After her husband died in 1945, Eleanor continued as an author, speaker, activist, and politician.  One of her goals was to help working women. 

Eleanor was a co-founder of Freedom House.  The United Nations was a coalition that she supported.  In order to advance support for the UN and its formation, Eleanor founded the UN Association of the United States.  She was a delegate to the UN General Assembly from 1945 until 1952, for which she was appointed by Harry S. Truman, president, and confirmed by the U.S. Senate.  While she was a part of the United Nations, she was the chair of the committee that approved the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.  Eleanor Roosevelt continued to be active in politics for the remainder of her life. 

Anna Eleanor Roosevelt was born in New York City to Elliott Roosevelt and Anna Hall Roosevelt.  She preferred to be called by her middle name, Eleanor, from an early age.  Eleanor had two brothers, Elliott Roosevelt Jr. and Hall Roosevelt, as well as a half brother who was born to Katy Mann, a servant of the family.  Her family was very wealthy.   Eleanor was a serious child, and her mother even gave her the nickname of "Granny" as a result.  When Eleanor was only eight years old, her mother died of diphtheria, and her father ended up confined to a sanitarium due to his alcoholism, and he died only two years after her mother.  Her brother Elliott Jr. also died from diphtheria.  Therefore, Eleanor was raised by her maternal grandmother.  During this time, she was starved for affection. 

Eleanor was tutored privately, and when she turned fifteen years old, she was encouraged to go to Allenswood Academy, which was a private finishing school near London, England.  Her headmistress there taught independent thinking in her young female students.  Here Eleanor learned how to speak French and also gained some self-confidence. 

When Eleanor was 17, she returned to the United States.  She had a debutante party and became a social worker, where she worked on the East Side slums of New York.  During that year, Eleanor met a fifth cousin of her father, Franklin D. Roosevelt, a charming and handsome twenty year old Harvard University student.  He had affection for her, and he began courting her in 1903.  She brought him along with her one day to the tenements where she was a social worker, and he was profoundly affected.  The couple became engaged in November of 1905.  Franklin's mother, Sara Roosevelt, was not in favor of the marriage, and she even took her only child on a cruise in 1904 to try to change his mind, but he was not to be dissuaded.  They were married on March 17, 1905.  After their formal honeymoon in Europe, the two settled in New York City in a home that had been provided by Franklin's mother.  In nearly all household matters, Eleanor allowed her mother in law to rule.  She did not become independent of Sara until Franklin was elected to the state senate and they moved to Albany, New York. 

Eleanor and Franklin had six children.  Five of their children lived beyond infancy.  Their children were Anna Eleanor Jr., James, Franklin Delano, Elliott, Franklin Delano Jr., and John Aspinwall.  The Roosevelt family spent summers at a place called Campobello Island on the Maine Canada border.  Here Franklin had a high fever in August of 1921 and he had permanent paralysis of his legs as a result. 

The Roosevelts had a happy start to their marriage, but Eleanor learned of his affair with her social secretary, Lucy Mercer.  She learned of this affair due to letters from Lucy that she found in his suitcases.  She told her husband that she wanted a divorce if he did not end the affair with Mercer.  He ended the relationship.  His own mother did not want him divorced.  Everyone pressured them to stay together for the children and for the sake of his political career.  Although he had agreed not to see her again, Mercer began visiting Franklin again in the 1930s and she was even with him at Warm Springs, Georgia when he passed away on April 12, 1945.  This obviously didn't sit well with Eleanor.  While the marriage continued, she and her husband were often separated due to their political activities.  Even though their relationship was strained at times, it was still close.  She insisted upon ending their physical relationship following his affair.  He had respect for her honesty, intelligence, and desire to improve the world.  Roosevelt also had a very close and controversial relationship with Lorena Hickok, a reporter.  Some of their correspondences were made public, and they indicate that there may have been a romantic connection between the two. 

After her husband was attacked by his paralysis in 1921, Eleanor Roosevelt would serve as a stand in for him, and she would have very successful appearances.  She also began working for the Women's Trade Union League, and she raised funds and supported the goals of the union.  Some of the goals included a minimum wage, a 48 hour work week, and the abolishment of child labor.  In the 1920s, Eleanor also became more influential as a leader in the New York State Democratic Party.  This helped her husband due to her strength with Democratic women.  During the 1920s, Eleanor also taught American history and literature at the Todhunter School for Girls in New York City. 

After the Presidential inauguration of her husband in 1933, she became the First Lady of the United States.  She was the first to have weekly press conferences as first lady and began a syndicated newspaper column, entitled, "My Day."  During her twelve years as First Lady in the White House, she made many personal appearances at labor meetings to let workers struggling in the Depression know that the White House knew what they were going through.  She also helped to make connections to the African American population.  She was a vocal supporter of the civil rights movement.  She spoke out for Marian Anderson in 1939 when she was denied the use of Constitution Hall and helped organize her concert on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial.  She also appointed Mary McLeod Bethune as the head of the Division of Negro Affairs, which was a big step. 

Eleanor felt it was very important for her to use her position as First Lady to share her knowledge, inspiration, and thoughts with the media in order to communicate to women.  At the time of Roosevelt's presidency, most women were still working inside the home as unpaid homemakers.  Eleanor believed that she could connect to these women.  She held press conferences, wrote her daily newspaper colum, and wrote magazine articles as means of communication.  Her reports were typically on the topics of education, poverty, rural life, unemployment, and the role of women.  During her husband's twelve year presidency, Eleanor held three hundred and forty-eight press conferences.  Men were not allowed into her meetings.  Eleanor's daily column, "My Day," was in print from 1936 until 1962.  It was similar to a diary of her daily activities.  In 1933, Eleanor began writing a monthly column with Woman's Home Companion, a big women's magazine at the time.  This column was a way for her to answer and communicate answers to mail that she received from her readers.  She was able to discuss social concerns in her column.  While she was in the White House, Eleanor published more than sixty different articles in magazines and national circulations for people to read. 

In 1941, Eleanor Roosevelt and others established Freedom House.  She became active on a national committee on civil defense once the United States became involved in World War II.  She was sent to the South Pacific in 1943 and she visited many wounded servicemen.  She wanted to improve the relationship between the United States and nations in the Western Hemisphere, so she took a tour of Latin American nations beginning in 1944.

After her husband died on April 12, 1945, she became a delegate to the United Nations General Assembly.  Here she played a very important role in drafting the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights.  She was the first chairperson of the UN Human Rights Commission.  In 1948, people wanted Roosevelt to run alongside President Truman, but she said she had no interest in elective politics.  In the 1950s, Eleanor continued on national and international speaking roles and continued to write her column.  She also made a number of appearances on radio and television. 

During her life, Eleanor Roosevelt received forty-eight honorary degrees.  After the death of her husband, she moved out of the White House and to Val-Kill Cottage in Hyde Park in New York.  She remained here for the remainder of her life.  In 1961, all the volumes of Eleanor Roosevelt's autobiography, which she began writing in 1937, were compiled into her book, The Autobiography of Eleanor Roosevelt.  Roosevelt was injured in 1960 after being hit by a car in New York City.  Soon her health declined quickly.  She was diagnosed with aplastic anemia and she developed bone marrow tuberculosis.  On November 7, 1962, Eleanor Roosevelt died when she was 78 years old.