Day 2- Eleanor Roosevelt

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Eleanor Roosevelt

We never hear much about Mrs. Roosevelt. She was certainly a woman before her time. She was born a Roosevelt, cousin to her future husband, Franklin, and she, like her make cousins, set out to change the world. She was an early champion of suffrage and equality for women as well racial equality long before others took up the call. Many call her the co-president for she served in many cases that her husband could not. She had a newspaper column and even a television show. She was even one of the first delegates to the UN. Like most women, almost nothing is taught in school about this accomplished and important American woman. I consider her one of the most important people of the 20th century.


From Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eleanor_Roosevelt)
(/ˈɛlɪnɔːr ˈroʊzəvɛlt/; October 11, 1884 – November 7, 1962) was an American politician, diplomat and activist.[1] She was the longest-serving First Lady of the United States, having held the post from March 1933 to April 1945 during her husband President Franklin D. Roosevelt's four terms in office,[1] and served as United States Delegate to the United Nations General Assembly from 1945 to 1952.[2][3] President Harry S. Truman later called her the "First Lady of the World" in tribute to her human rights achievements.[4]

Roosevelt was a member of the prominent American Roosevelt and Livingston families and a niece of President Theodore Roosevelt.[3] She had an unhappy childhood, having suffered 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 its headmistress Marie Souvestre. Returning to the U.S., she married her fifth cousin once removed, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, in 1905. The Roosevelts' marriage was complicated from the beginning by Franklin's controlling mother, Sara, and after Eleanor discovered her husband's affair with Lucy Mercer in 1918, she resolved to seek fulfillment in a public life of her own. She persuaded Franklin to stay in politics after he was stricken with a paralytic illness in 1921, which cost him the normal use of his legs, and began giving speeches and appearing at campaign events in his place. Following Franklin's election as Governor of New York in 1928, and throughout the remainder of Franklin's public career in government, Roosevelt regularly made public appearances on his behalf, and as First Lady while her husband served as President, she significantly reshaped and redefined the role of First Lady.

Though widely respected in her later years, Roosevelt was a controversial First Lady at the time for her outspokenness, particularly her stance on racial issues. She was the first presidential spouse to hold regular press conferences, write a daily newspaper column, write a monthly magazine column, host a weekly radio show, and speak at a national party 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 Asian Americans, and the rights of World War II refugees.

Following her husband's death in 1945, Roosevelt remained active in politics for the remaining 17 years of her life. She pressed the United States to join and support the United Nations and became its first delegate. 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 the time of her death, Roosevelt was regarded as "one of the most esteemed women in the world"; she was called "the object of almost universal respect" in her New York Times obituary.[5] In 1999, she was ranked ninth in the top ten of Gallup's List of Most Widely Admired People of the 20th Century.[6]
Read more about her at the link above.

She wrote many books:

1932
Hunting Big Game in the Eighties: The Letters of Elliott Roosevelt, Sportsman. New York: Scribners, 1932.
When You Grow Up to Vote. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1932.
1933
It's Up to the Women. New York: Stokes, 1933.
1935
A Trip to Washington with Bobby and Betty. New York: Dodge, 1935.
1937
This Is My Story. New York: Harper, 1937.
1938
My Days. New York: Dodge, 1938.
The Lady of the White House. London: Hutchisnon, 1938. (British edition of This Is My Story.).
This Troubled World. New York: Kinsey, 1938.
1940
Christmas: A Story. New York: Knopf, 1940.
Christmas, 1940. New York: St. Martin's. 1940.
The Moral Basis of Democracy. New York: Howell, Soskin, 1940.
1942
This Is America. New York: Putnam's, 1942 (with Frances Cooke Macgregor).
1946
If You Ask Me. New York: Appleton-Century, 1946.
1949
This I Remember. New York: Harper, 1949.
1950
Partners: The United Nations and Youth. Garden City: Doubleday, 1950 (with Helen Ferris) .
1953
India and the Awakening East. New York: Harper, 1953.
UN: Today and Tomorrow. New York: Harper, 1953 (with William DeWitt).
1954
It Seems to Me. New York: Norton, 1954.
Ladies of Courage. New York: Putnam's, 1954 (with Lorena Hickok).
1955
United Nations: What You Should Know about It. New London: Croft, 1955.
1958
On My Own. New York: Harper, 1958.
1960
Growing Toward Peace. New York: Random House, 1960 (with Regina Tor).
You Learn By Living. New York: Harper, 1960.
1961
The Autobiography of Eleanor Roosevelt. New York: Harper, 1961.
Your Teens and Mine. New York: Da Capo, 1961.
1962
Eleanor Roosevelt's Book of Common Sense Etiquette. New York: Macmillan, 1962 (with the assistance of Robert O. Ballou).
1963
Eleanor Roosevelt's Christmas Book. New York: Dodd, Mead, 1963.
Tomorrow Is Now. New York: Harper, 1963.

Books about Eleanor Roosevelt:
Blanch Wiesen Cook has a three volume biography:
Eleanor Roosevelt, Vol. 1: 1884-1933
Eleanor Roosevelt : Volume 2 , The Defining Years, 1933-1938
Eleanor Roosevelt, Volume 3: The War Years and After, 1939-1962
Eleanor and Hick: The Love Affair That Shaped a First Lady – Susan Quinn


I would also suggest watching Ken Burns’ The Roosevelts: an Intimate History to learn more about this amazing woman and the world she lived in.