ELEANOR ROOSEVELT

 

ELEANOR ROOSEVELT (1884-1962)

As the chair of the United Nations Human Rights Commission, Eleanor Roosevelt was the driving force in creating the 1948 charter of liberties which will always be her legacy: The Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

She was born in New York City on October 11, 1884, daughter of lovely Anna Hall and Elliott Roosevelt, younger brother of Theodore.  Both her parents died when she was a child, her mother in 1892, and her father in 1894. After her mother's death, Eleanor went to live with her grandmother Hall.

She was educated by private tutors until the age of 15, when she was sent to Allenswood, a school for girls in England.  This experience helped draw her out of her shell and gave her, at 15, her first chance to develop self-confidence among other girls. At age 18, Eleanor returned to New York with a fresh sense of confidence in herself and her abilities. She became involved in social service work, joined the Junior League and taught at the Rivington Street Settlement House.

On March 17, 1905, after a long courtship, she married her fifth cousin, rising politician Franklin Delano Roosevelt and became fully immersed in public service. Her uncle and close relative, President Theodore Roosevelt, walked her down the aisle. Between 1906 and 1916, Eleanor and Franklin became the parents of six children. During this period, her public activities gave way to family concerns and her husband's political career. However, with American entry in World War I, she became active in the American Red Cross and in volunteer work in Navy hospitals.

In Albany, where Franklin served in the state Senate from 1910 to 1913, Eleanor started her long career as political helpmate. She gained a knowledge of Washington and its ways while he served as Assistant Secretary of the Navy. When he was stricken with poliomyelitis in 1921, she tended him devotedly. She became active in the women’s division of the State Democratic Committee, participated in the League of Women Voters, joined the Women's Trade Union League, to keep his interest in politics alive, but also to assert her own personality and goals.

By the time they arrived in the White House in 1933 as President and First Lady, Eleanor dramatically changed the role of the first lady. Not content to stay in the background and handle domestic matters, she gave press conferences and spoke out for human rights, children's causes and women's issues, working on behalf of the League of Women Voters. She was already deeply involved in human rights and social justice issues. Continuing her work on behalf of all people, she advocated equal rights for women, African-Americans and Depression-era workers, bringing inspiration and attention to their causes. Courageously outspoken, she publicly supported Marian Anderson when in 1939 the black singer was denied the use of Washington’s Constitution Hall because of her race. Roosevelt saw to it that Anderson performed instead on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, creating an enduring and inspiring image of personal courage and human rights. She became an advocate of the rights and needs of the poor, of minorities, and of the disadvantaged. The public was drawn in by the First Lady's exploits and adventures which she recounted in her daily syndicated column, "My Day". She began writing the column in 1935 and continued until her death in 1962.

Roosevelt’s political activism did not end with her husband’s death in 1945. President Harry Truman appointed Eleanor as a delegate to the United Nations General Assembly, a position in which she served from 1945 to 1953. She became chair of the U.N.'s Human Rights Commission and worked tirelessly to draft the Universal Declaration of Human Rights which was adopted by the General Assembly on December 10, 1948. She submitted Declaration with these words: “We stand today at the threshold of a great event both in the life of the United Nations and in the life of mankind. This declaration may well become the international Magna Carta for all men everywhere.”

Called “First Lady of the World” by President Truman for her lifelong humanitarian achievements, Roosevelt worked to the end of her life to gain acceptance and implementation of the rights set forth in the Declaration. The legacy of her words and her work appears in the constitutions of scores of nations and in an evolving body of international law that now protects the rights of men and women across the world.

In 1960, at the request of President John F. Kennedy, she chaired the President’s Commission on the Status of Women, which released a ground-breaking study about gender discrimination a year after her death in 1963. She also worked on the Equal Pay Act that was passed that same year. Roosevelt’s commitment to racial justice was evident in her civil rights work and efforts to push Washington to take swifter action in housing desegregation and protections for Freedom Riders and other activists. Kennedy nominated Roosevelt for the Nobel Peace Prize and though she did not win, she remained at the top of national polls ranking the most respected women in America decades after her death.

 She died on November 7, 1962, and is buried alongside her husband in the Rose Garden of their estate at Hyde Park, now a national historic site.

A shy, awkward child, starved for recognition and love, Eleanor Roosevelt grew into a woman with great sensitivity to the underprivileged of all creeds, races, and nations. Her constant work to improve their lot made her one of the most loved–and for some years one of the most revered–women of her generation. A revolutionary first lady, Eleanor 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. (https://www.humanrights.com/voices-for-human-rights/eleanor-roosevelt.html; https://www.whitehouse.gov/about-the-white-house/first-families/anna-eleanor-roosevelt/; https://www.womenshistory.org/education-resources/biographies/eleanor-roosevelt; https://www.biography.com/us-first-lady/eleanor-roosevelt)