Eleanor Roosevelt

1884-1962

Eleanor Roosevelt was an author, speaker, and humanitarian who was the longest-serving first lady of the United States from 1933 to 1945. The New York native was the wife of 32nd President Franklin D. Roosevelt. Redefining the role of first lady, she advocated for human and women's rights, held regular press conferences, and penned her own newspaper column. After leaving the White House, Roosevelt became chair of the U.N.’s Human Rights Commission. The groundbreaking first lady died in 1962 in New York City at the age of 78.

FULL NAME: Anna Eleanor Roosevelt
BORN: October 11, 1884
DIED: November 7, 1962
BIRTHPLACE: New York City, NY
SPOUSE: Franklin D. Roosevelt (1905–1945)
CHILDREN: Anna, James, Franklin Jr., John, Elliott, Franklin Jr.
ASTROLOGICAL SIGN: Libra

Anna Eleanor Roosevelt was born on October 11, 1884, in New York City. Her father, Elliott Roosevelt, the brother of President Theodore Roosevelt, and her mother Anna Hall Roosevelt, were prominent socialites.

Known as a shy child, Roosevelt experienced tremendous loss at a young age. Her mother died of diphtheria in 1892 and her father, who struggled with drug and alcohol addiction, followed suit two years later. Roosevelt and her younger brothers, Elliott Jr. and Gracie, were then placed under the care of their maternal grandmother, Mary Ludlow Hall, in New York.

Roosevelt was educated primarily by private tutors until the age of 15, when her grandmother sent her to Allenswood Academy in London—an experience that helped draw her out of her shell.

Eleanor Roosevelt with husband Franklin D. Roosevelt.

Roosevelt became reacquainted with her distant cousin Franklin Roosevelt in 1902, and the two embarked on a clandestine relationship. Since they were fifth cousins once removed, their relationship was considered socially acceptable, but they still kept their romance a secret at first because Franklin’s mother, Sara, disapproved. Despite Sara’s objections, Eleanor and Franklin got engaged in 1903 and were soon married on March 17, 1905. During the ceremony, Eleanor’s uncle Theodore walked her down the aisle. The couple went on to have six children: Anna, James, Franklin Jr. (who died as an infant), Elliott, Franklin Jr. and John.

As her husband achieved success in politics, Eleanor found her own voice in public service, working for the American Red Cross during World War I. She also exerted herself more prominently after Franklin suffered a polio attack in 1921 that essentially left him in need of physical assistance for the rest of his life.

When Franklin took office as the 32nd president in 1933, Eleanor dramatically changed the role of the first lady. Not content to stay in the background and handle domestic matters, Roosevelt gave regular press conferences and spoke out for human rights, children's causes, and women's issues, working on behalf of the League of Women Voters. Along with penning her own newspaper column, “My Day,” she focused on helping Americans living in poverty and firmly stood against racial discrimination.

Known as the “president’s eyes, ears, and legs,” the first lady traveled across the country to survey working and living conditions in America. She regularly visited coal mines, soup kitchens, and generally impoverished areas, relaying her observations to her husband. Roosevelt championed the creation of the New Deal’s first federal subsistence homestead program in Arthurdale, West Virginia, in 1933, which relocated miners and their families, providing them with homes, schools, and training for agrarian and industrial jobs.

She also used her position to protest segregation. In November 1938, Roosevelt defied segregation laws at the Southern Conference for Human Welfare in Birmingham, Alabama when she moved her chair in the middle of the aisle separating white and Black attendees.

The following February, she publicly resigned from the Daughters of the American Revolution after African American singer Marian Anderson was barred from performing at Constitution Hall in Washington D.C. In April 1939, Roosevelt helped to organize an open-air concert for Anderson on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, which was attended by more than 75,000 people.

During World War II, she also traveled abroad to visit U.S. troops, notably touring the South Pacific for five weeks in 1943. The longest-serving first lady in U.S. history, Eleanor remained in the role throughout Franklin’s historically lengthy presidency, which ended when he died just after the start of his fourth term on April 12, 1945.

Following her husband's passing, Roosevelt told interviewers that she didn't have plans for continuing her public service. However, the opposite would actually prove to be true. President Harry Truman appointed her as a delegate to the United Nations General Assembly, a position in which she served from 1945 to 1953. Roosevelt became chair of the U.N.'s Human Rights Commission and helped to write the Universal Declaration of Human Rights—an effort that she considered to be her greatest achievement.

President John F. Kennedy reappointed her to the U.S. delegation to the U.N. in 1961, and later named her to the National Advisory Committee of the Peace Corps and as chair of the President's Commission on the Status of Women.

Much has been made of the extramarital relationships cultivated by Franklin and Eleanor, both before and after they became nationally known figures. For her part, Eleanor was said to be enamored of her personal bodyguard, Earl Miller. Additionally, her fondness for journalist Lorena Hickok was something of an open secret. The two engaged in extensive correspondence that produced some 3,500 letters.

Outside of her political work, Roosevelt wrote several books about her life and experiences, including This Is My Story (1937), This I Remember (1949), On My Own,(1958) and Autobiography (1961). She also published the advice and self-help books It’s Up to the Women (1933) and You Learn by Living (1960).

On November 7, 1962, Roosevelt died of aplastic anemia, tuberculosis, and heart failure at the age of 78. She was buried at the family estate in Hyde Park.

A revolutionary first lady, Roosevelt was one of the most ambitious and outspoken women to ever live in the White House. Although she was both criticized and praised for her active role in public policy, she is remembered as a humanitarian who dedicated much of her life to fighting for political and social change, and as one of the first public officials to publicize important issues through the mass media.

• The political influence that was attributed to me was nil where my husband was concerned... If I felt strongly about anything, I told Franklin, since he had the power to do things and I did not, but he did not always feel as I felt.
• We need not fear any 'isms' if our democracy is achieving the ends for which it was established.
• No matter how plain a woman may be, if truth and loyalty are stamped upon her face, all will be attracted to her.
• My interest... is not aroused by an abstract cause but by the plight of a single person.
• The greatest thing I have learned is how good it is to come home again.
• The ability to think for myself did not develop until I was well on in life and therefore no real personality developed in my early youth.
• You gain strength, courage and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face ...You must do the thing you think you cannot do.
• From the personal standpoint, I did not want my husband to be president. It was pure selfishness on my part, and I never mentioned my feelings on the subject to him.
• It was not until I reached middle age that I had the courage to develop interests of my own, outside of my duties to my family.
• One thing I believe profoundly—we make our own history.
• I was a solemn child, without beauty and painfully shy.

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