ELEANOR ROOSEVELT 1884 1962 Leo R Sandy Eleanor

ELEANOR ROOSEVELT 1884 -1962 Leo R. Sandy

Eleanor Roosevelt • First lady Eleanor Roosevelt, wife of Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882 -1945), the U. S. president from 1933 to 1945, was a leader in her own right and involved in numerous humanitarian causes throughout her life. • The niece of President Theodore Roosevelt (1858 -1919), Eleanor was born into a wealthy New York family. She married Franklin Roosevelt, her fifth cousin once removed, in 1905. By the 1920 s, Roosevelt, who raised five children, was involved in Democratic Party politics and numerous social reform organizations. In the White House, she was one of the most active first ladies in history and worked for political, racial and social justice. • After President Roosevelt’s death, Eleanor was a delegate to the United Nations and continued to serve as an advocate for a wide range of human rights issues. She remained active in Democratic causes and was a prolific writer until her death at age 78.

Roosevelt cont’d • Anna Eleanor Roosevelt was born on October 11, 1884, in New York City. Her father, Elliott Roosevelt (1860 -1894) was the younger brother of Theodore Roosevelt, and her mother, Anna Hall (1863 -1892), was from a wealthy New York family. Roosevelt’s father was an alcoholic and her parents’ marriage was troubled. • After her mother died of diphtheria in 1892 (her father died less than two years later), Roosevelt and her two younger brothers, Elliott Roosevelt Jr. (1889 -1893) and Gracie Hall Roosevelt (1891 -1941), lived with their grandmother, Mary Ludlow Hall (1843 -1919), in Manhattan and Tivoli, New York. • J. Edgar Hoover (1895 -1972), the longtime director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, considered Eleanor Roosevelt’s liberal views dangerous and believed she might be involved in communist activities. He ordered his agents to monitor Roosevelt and keep what became an extensive file on her (as he did with Martin Luther King, Jr. )

Roosevelt cont’d • Roosevelt, an awkward, serious child, was educated by private tutors until age 15, when she was sent to Allenswood Academy, a school for girls in England. She excelled under the mentorship of the school’s headmistress, Marie Souvestre (1830 -1905), who promoted social responsibility and independence for young women. Roosevelt’s formal education ended at age 18, when she returned to New York City and made her social debut at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel • She then became actively involved with social reform work, serving as a volunteer teacher for impoverished immigrant children at Manhattan’s Rivington Street Settlement House and joining the National Consumers’ League, whose mission was to end unsafe working conditions and labor practices in factories and other businesses.

Roosevelt cont’d • On March 17, 1905, 20 -year-old Eleanor married Franklin Roosevelt, a 22 year-old Harvard University student and her fifth cousin once removed. The two had met as children and became reacquainted after Eleanor returned from school in England. • Their wedding took place at the home of one of Eleanor’s relatives on Manhattan’s Upper East Side, and the bride was escorted down the aisle by then-President Theodore Roosevelt. Franklin and Eleanor had six children, five of whom survived to adulthood: Anna (1906 -1975), James (1907 -1991), Elliott (1910 -1990), Franklin Jr. (1914 -1988) and John (19161981). • In addition to raising her family during these years, Eleanor Roosevelt volunteered with the American Red Cross and in Navy hospitals during World War I (1914 -1918). In the 1920 s, she became active in Democratic Party politics and was also involved with such activist organizations as the Women’s Union Trade League and the League of Women Voters

Roosevelt cont’d • Additionally, she cofounded Val-Kill Industries, a nonprofit furniture factory in Hyde Park, New York (where the Roosevelt family estate, Springwood, was located), and taught American history and literature at the Todhunter School, a private Manhattan girls’ school. • In 1921, Franklin Roosevelt was diagnosed with polio, which left him paralyzed from the waist down. Eleanor encouraged her husband’s return to politics, and in 1928 he was elected governor of New York. Six years later, Roosevelt was elected to the White House. • Eleanor Roosevelt was initially reluctant to step into the role of first lady, fearful about losing her hard-won autonomy and knowing she would have to give up her Todhunter teaching job and other activities and organizations she cared about.

Roosevelt cont’d • After Franklin Roosevelt was sworn in as president in March 1933, Eleanor began to transform the conventional role of first lady from social hostess to that of a more visible, active participant in her husband’s administration. • The Roosevelts entered the White House in the midst of the Great Depression (which began in 1929 and lasted approximately a decade), and the president and Congress soon implemented a series of economic recovery initiatives known as the New Deal. As first lady, Eleanor traveled across the United States, acting as her husband’s eyes and ears and reporting back to him after she visited government institutions and programs and numerous other facilities. • She was an early champion of civil rights for African Americans, as well as an advocate for women, American workers, the poor and young people. She also supported government-funded programs for artists and writers.

Roosevelt cont’d • Eleanor also broke with precedent by inviting hundreds of African. American guests to the White House. When the black singer Marian Anderson was denied the use of Washington's Constitution Hall in 1939 by the Daughters of the American Revolution, Eleanor resigned from the group in protest and helped arrange another concert on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial • Eleanor lobbied behind the scenes for the 1934 Costigan-Wagner Bill to make lynching a federal crime, including arranging a meeting between Franklin and NAACP president Walter Francis White • Roosevelt's support of African-American rights made her an unpopular figure among whites in the South. • Following the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, Roosevelt spoke out against anti-Japanese prejudice, warning against the "great hysteria against minority groups. "

Roosevelt cont’d • Roosevelt encouraged her husband to appoint more women to federal positions, and she held hundreds of press conferences for female reporters only at a time when women were typically barred from White House press conferences. • Additionally, Roosevelt wrote a syndicated newspaper column entitled “My Day” from December 1935 until shortly before her death in 1962. She used the column to share information about her activities and communicate her positions on a wide range of social and political issues. • During World War II (1939 -1945), Roosevelt advocated on behalf of European refugees who wanted to come to the United States. She also promoted issues that were important to American troops, worked to boost soldiers’ morale, encouraged volunteerism on the home front and championed women employed in the defense industry. She also pushed for the continuation of New Deal programs during the war, against the wishes of some of her husband’s advisors.

Roosevelt cont’d • After the president’s death, Eleanor Roosevelt returned to New York, splitting her time between her Val-Kill cottage (the former furniture factory was turned into a home) in Hyde Park and an apartment in New York City. There was speculation she would run for public office; instead, she chose to remain highly active as a private citizen. • From 1946 to 1953, Roosevelt served as a U. S. delegate to the United Nations, where she oversaw the drafting and passage of the Universal Human Declaration of Rights. Roosevelt considered the document, which continues to serve as a model for how people and nations should treat each other, one of her most significant achievements • From 1961 until her death the following year, Roosevelt headed the first Presidential Commission on the Status of Women, at the request of President John Kennedy (1917 -1963). She also served on the board of numerous organizations, including the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and the Advisory Council for the Peace Corps.

Roosevelt cont’d • Roosevelt remained involved in Democratic Party activities during her post-White House years, campaigning for candidates around the country. Additionally, she hosted radio programs and a television news show, and continued to write her newspaper column and give lectures. Over the course of her life, Roosevelt wrote 27 books and more than 8, 000 columns. • Eleanor Roosevelt died at age 78 on November 7, 1962, in New York City, from aplastic anemia, tuberculosis and heart failure. Her funeral was attended by President Kennedy and former presidents Harry Truman (1884 -1972) and Dwight Eisenhower (1890 -1969). She was buried next to her husband on the grounds of the Roosevelt estate in Hyde Park.

Awards • Eleanor was posthumously inducted into the National Women's Hall of Fame in 1973 • The Eleanor Roosevelt Monument, in New York's Riverside Park, was dedicated in 1996, with then–First Lady Hillary Clinton as the keynote speaker. • In 1998, the Eleanor Roosevelt Award for Human Rights was established by then-President of the United States Bill Clinton, honoring outstanding American promoters of rights in the United States • The Gallup Organization published the poll Gallup's List of Most Widely Admired People of the 20 th Century, to determine which people around the world Americans most admired for what they did in the 20 th century in 1999. Eleanor Roosevelt came in ninth

Awards cont’d • In 2001, the Eleanor Roosevelt Legacy Committee (Eleanor's Legacy) was founded by Judith Hollensworth Hope, who was its president until April 2008. It inspires and supports pro-choice Democratic women to run for local and state offices in New York • In 2007, she was named a Woman hero by The My Hero Project. • On April 20, 2016, United States Secretary of the Treasury Jacob Lew announced that Eleanor Roosevelt will appear with Marian Anderson and noted suffragettes on the redesigned US $5 bill scheduled to be unveiled in the year 2020, the 100 th anniversary of the 19 th Amendment of the U. S. Constitution which granted women in America the right to vote

Awards cont’d • Eleanor Roosevelt High School, a public magnet high school specializing in science, mathematics, technology, and engineering, was established in 1976 at its current location in Greenbelt, Maryland. It was the first high school named for Eleanor Roosevelt, and is part of the Prince George's County Public Schools system. • In 1988, Eleanor Roosevelt College, one of six undergraduate residential colleges at the University of California, San Diego, was founded • Eleanor Roosevelt High School, a small public high school on the Upper East Side of Manhattan in New York City, was founded in 2002. Three years later, in 2005, Eleanor Roosevelt High School in Eastvale, California, opened.

Quotes • A woman is like a tea bag - you can't tell how strong she is until you put her in hot water. • No one can make you feel inferior without your consent. • Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people. • I can not believe that war is the best solution. No one won the last war, and no one will win the next war. • When will our consciences grow so tender that we will act to prevent human misery rather than avenge it?

Videos • Eleanor Roosevelt Television Interviews • Eleanor Roosevelt Speech Human Rights

References • Eleanor Roosevelt. Retrieved from http: //www. history. com/topics/firstladies/eleanor-roosevelt • Eleanor Roosevelt Quotes. Retrieved from https: //www. brainyquote. com/quotes/authors/e/eleanor_roosevelt. html • Eleanor Roosevelt Television Interviews. Retrieved from https: //www. youtube. com/watch? v=pvj. AKLT-DN 0 • Eleanor Roosevelt Speech Human Rights. Retrieved from https: //www. youtube. com/watch? v=s. PVWmm. VKVk 0