Eleanor Roosevelt

Anna Eleanor Roosevelt (October 11, 1884 – November 7, 1962) was an American political leader who used her stature as First Lady from 1933 to 1945 to promote her husband (Franklin D. Roosevelt's) New Deal, as well as civil rights. After her husband's death in 1945 she built a career as a New Deal Coalition advocate and spokesperson for human rights. She was a suffragist who worked hard to enhance the status of working women, opposing the Equal Rights Amendment because she believed it would hurt them. In the late 1940s she became a leader in supporting the United Nations, the United Nations Association and Freedom House. She chaired the committee that drafted and approved the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. President Harry S. Truman called her the First Lady of the World in honor of her extensive human rights promotions.

Early life

Anna Eleanor Roosevelt was born at 56 West 37th Street in New York City. Her parents were Elliott Roosevelt and Anna Hall Roosevelt. Two brothers, Elliot, Jr. (1889-1983) and Hall Roosevelt (1891-1941) were born later. When Eleanor was eight, her mother died and she and her brothers were sent to live with her maternal grandmother, Mary Ludlow Hall (1843-1919) at Tivoli, New York. Just before Eleanor turned ten, her father died of complications of alcoholism. In the fall of 1899, with the encouragement of her paternal aunt Bamie Cowles, it was decided to send Eleanor to Allenswood Academy, a finishing school for young, wealthy American and English women. Under the tutelage of headmistress, Marie Souvestre, Eleanor developed into an independent-thinking, self-confident young woman. Eleanor's first-cousin Corinne Robinson, whose first term at Allenswood overlapped with Eleanor's last said that when she arrived at the school, Eleanor was "everything." During her years as a young woman, Roosevelt claimed her full, 6' height.

Roosevelt returned in 1902 and made her debut in New York high society. She became engaged to Franklin D. Roosevelt (a fifth cousin) in 1903; they were married on March 17, 1905 in New York; her uncle President Theodore Roosevelt gave the bride away.

Six children followed in rapid succession, with all but one surviving infancy. Their children were: Anna Eleanor, James, Franklin (1909), Elliott, a second Franklin Delano, John Aspinwall.

Politics 1914-32

Very shy at first, Eleanor kept a low profile when her husband was Assistant Secreatry of the Navy during Worl War I. She became more accustomed to the limelight when Franklin was the Democratic nominee for Vice President in 1920 (he lost), and when he ran for governor of New York (he won in 1928 and 1930). After he contracted poolio she bdecame much more active, serrving as his spokesperson at many meetings around the state.

First Lady of the United States: 1933-45

Having seen her aunt, Edith Roosevelt's strict social tension and protocol during her White House years, Eleanor set out on a different venture. She was heavily criticized for continuing the business and social agenda she had begun before becoming First Lady. A woman during that period's primary duties were being a faithful and dedicated housewife and mother. She was the first First Lady to hold weekly press conferences. These were given to female reporters only.Template:Fact Roosevelt maintained a heavy travel schedule over her twelve years in the White House, probably heavier than most presidents up to that time.

During Franklin Roosevelt's terms as President, Eleanor was very vocal about her support of the American Civil Rights Movement (1896-1954) and of African-American rights. Her husband quietly agreed but did not risk alienating the white South until the war began, when he issued powerful civil rights orders, especially FEPC.

World War II

Eleanor Roosevelt was very active on the homefront. With New York Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia she cochaired a national committee on civil defense. She made innumerable visits to civilian and military centers to boost war morale. She especially supported more opportunities for African Americans and women. In 1943, Eleanor, along with Wendell Willkie and other Americans concerned about the mounting threats to peace and democracy established Freedom House.

Eleanor earned large amounts of money from advertising activities. The Pan-American Coffee Bureau, which was supported by tax revenues from eight foreign governments, paid Roosevelt $1000 a week for advertising. When the State Department found out that the First Lady was being paid so handsomely by foreign governments, they unsuccessfully tried to have the deal cancelled.

Postwar politics

After World War II, Roosevelt played an instrumental role, along with René Cassin, John Peters Humphrey and others, in drafting the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Roosevelt served as the first chairperson of the UN Human Rights Commission . On the night of September 28, 1948, Roosevelt spoke on behalf of the Declaration calling it "the international Magna Carta of all mankind" (James 1948). The Declaration was adopted by the UN General Assembly on December 10, 1948 . The vote of the General Assembly was unanimous except for eight abstentions. The Declaration was Roosevelt's crowning achievement.

Eleanor was nick-named "first lady of the world", by President Harry Truman after Franklin died because of her outstanding efforts to make the world a better place.

From the 1920s until her death in 1962, Roosevelt remained involved heavily in politics. She strongly opposed the Equal Rights Amendment because it would prevent Congress and the states from passing special protective legislation that she thought women workers needed. .

The Catholic issue

In July 1949, her ambivalent attitude toward American Catholics caused a high visibility fight with Francis Cardinal Spellman, the Catholic Archbishop of New York. In her columns, Eleanor had attacked proposals for federal funding of certain (nonreligious) activities, such as bus transportation for students, at Catholic schools. Spellman pointed out that the Supreme Court had recently upheld such provisions, and accused her of anti-Catholicism. Most Democrats rallied behind Roosevelt, so Spellman came to Eleanor's Hyde Park home to bury the hatchet. However, Eleanor retained her belief that Catholic schools should not receive federal aid. She seems to have paid attention to the anti-Catholic polemics of people like Paul Blanshard. Privately, she said that if Catholics got school aid, "Once that is done they control the schools, or at least a great part of them."

Mrs. Roosevelt was never as popular among Catholics as her husband. While he kept the country neutral in the Spanish Civil War, she openly favored the republican Loyalists (who were anticlerical) against General Francisco Franco's Nationalists (whom many American Catholics favored); after 1945, she opposed normalizing relations with Spain. She told Spellman bluntly that "I cannot however say that in European countries the control by the Roman Catholic Church of great areas of land has always led to happiness for the people of those countries." Catholics resented her quiet support of Margaret Sanger and the birth control movement, and her prewar sponsorship of the American Youth Congress, in which the Communists had been heavily represented, but Catholic youth groups were not represented. In 1960 she actively opposed John F. Kennedy's quest for the presidential nomination in part because, biographer Lash has concluded, "Somewhere deep in her subconscious was an anti-Catholicism which was a part of her Protestant heritage." Her son Elliott Roosevelt suggested that her "reservations about Catholicism" were rooted in her husband's sexual affairs with Lucy Mercer and Missy LeHand, who were both Catholics.

New York and national politics

In 1954, Tammany Hall boss Carmine DeSapio campaigned against Eleanor's son, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Jr., during the New York Attorney General elections, which Franklin (Jr.) lost. Roosevelt held DeSapio responsible for her son's defeat and grew increasingly disgusted with his political conduct through the rest of the 1950s. Eventually, she would join with her old friends Herbert Lehman and Thomas Finletter to form the New York Committee for Democratic Voters, a group dedicated to enhancing the democratic process by opposing DeSapio's reincarnated Tammany. Their efforts were eventually successful, and DeSapio was removed from power in 1961.

Eleanor was a close friend of Adlai Stevenson and supported his candidacies in the 1952 and 1956 presidential elections. When President Truman backed New York Governor W. Averell Harriman, who was a close associate of Carmine DeSapio, for the Democratic presidential nomination, Roosevelt was disappointed but continued to support Stevenson who ultimately won the nomination. She backed Stevenson once again in 1960 primarily to block John F. Kennedy, who nevertheless received the presidential nomination.

By the 1950s Roosevelt's international role as spokesman for women led her to stop publicly attacking the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA). But she never supported it and never thought it was wise. In 1961, President Kennedy’s undersecretary of labor, Esther Peterson, who was a former union official and an adamant foe of the ERA, proposed a new "President’s Commission on the Status of Women." Kennedy appointed Roosevelt to chair the commission, with Peterson as director. Roosevelt died just before the commission issued its final report. It was a massive study that restated the decades-old stance that female equality was best achieved by recognition of gender differences and needs, and not by an Equal Rights Amendment.

Roosevelt was responsible for the establishment, in 1964, of the 2,800 acre (11 km²) ([1]) Roosevelt Campobello International Park on Campobello Island, New Brunswick. This followed a gift of the Roosevelt summer estate to the Canadian and American governments.

Eleanor Roosevelt was outspoken on numerous causes and continued to galvanize the world with her comments and opinions well into her seventies.

Family matters

Relationship with mother-in-law

Eleanor had a sometimes contentious relationship with her domineering mother-in-law, Sara Delano Roosevelt, who at 5'10" was only 2 inches shorter than Eleanor. Long before Eleanor fell in love with her future husband and distant cousin, Franklin, she already had a relationship with Sara as a distant but highly engaging cousin with whom she corresponded. Although they had a somewhat contentious relationship, Sara sincerely wanted to be a mother to Eleanor and did her best before and during the marriage to fill this role. Sara had her own reasons for attempting to prevent their marriage and historians continue to discuss them. Historians also have had widely diverging opinions on the pluses and minuses of this relationship. From Eleanor's perspective, she was relatively young, inexperienced and with a mother long dead, lacked the support that her own mother, Anna Hall, might have given had she lived. Despite her forceful and domineering personality, Sara Delano Roosevelt had much to teach her new daughter-in-law on what a young wife should know. Eleanor, while sometimes resenting Sara's domineering nature, nevertheless highly valued her opinion in the early years of her marriage until she developed the experience and confidence a wife gains from the school of marital "hard knocks". Historians continue to study the reasons Eleanor allowed Sara to dominate their lives, especially in the first years of the marriage. Eleanor's income was more than half of that of her husband's when they married in 1905 and could have lived still relatively luxuriously without Sara's financial support.

From Sara's perspective, she was bound and determined to ensure her son's success in all areas of life including his marriage. Sara had doted on her son to the point of spoiling him, and now intended to help him make a success of his marriage with a woman that she evidently viewed as being totally unprepared for her new role as chatelaine of a great family. Sarah would continue to give huge presents to her new grandchildren, but sometimes Eleanor had problems with the influence that came with "mother's largesse."

Tensions with some Oyster Bay Roosevelts

Although Eleanor was always in the good graces of her Uncle Theodore, the paterfamilas of the Oyster Bay Roosevelts, she often found herself at odds with his eldest daughter, Alice Roosevelt. Uncle Theodore felt Eleanor's conduct to be far more responsible, socially acceptable and cooperative: in short, more "Rooseveltian" than that of the beautiful, highly photogenic but rebellious and self-absorbed Alice, to whom he would ask, "Why can't you be more like 'cousin Eleanor'?" These early experiences laid the foundation for life-long strain between the two high-profile cousins. Eleanor's relationship with her cousin and other Oyster Bay Roosevelts would be aggravated by the widening political gulf between the Hyde Park and Oyster Bay families as Franklin D. Roosevelt's political career began to take off. Characteristically caustic comments by "Cousin Alice", such as her later description of Franklin as "two-thirds mush and one-third Eleanor" certainly did not help.

Franklin's affair

Despite its happy start, the Roosevelts' marriage almost split over Franklin's affair with Eleanor's social secretary Lucy Mercer (later Lucy Mercer Rutherfurd). Eleanor immediately offered a divorce if the affair continued. Franklin told his mother that he was considering a divorce. So implacable was Sara's opposition to this proposition that she warned that she would disinherit him. By the time of this affair, Sara had grown extremely fond of Eleanor. Sara told Eleanor that "Roosevelts don't do divorce", and said that Eleanor would have to raise her five children alone in the event of a divorce. Aunt Corinne and Uncle Ted were influential in convincing their niece to remain in the marriage, likely for reasons similar to Sara's. Furthermore, Lucy was a Roman Catholic which made any thought of her marrying a divorced Protestant problematic at best. Franklin agreed not to see Lucy, but much evidence points to a continued affair or at least much personal contact between him and Lucy, occurring right up to Franklin's death in 1945. Eleanor learned that Lucy Mercer had been there, and some of Eleanor's children (most notably her daughter Anna Roosevelt Boettiger) knew this as well. An altercation occurred between Eleanor and Anna because Anna helped arrange meetings between Lucy and Franklin, including their last when he died. By the fall of 1944, almost everyone in the family knew that Franklin was extremely ill from a host of ailments, and the children saw Lucy's presence as a way for their dying father to find some comfort in his last months. Roosevelt later admitted to her son Elliott that FDR's second infidelity was her own fault. FDR had made several attempts over the years to reconcile with his wife and even went so far as to exaggerate illnesses in order that Eleanor would curtail her travel schedule (especially during the stressful World War II years) to be with him. This attempt failed. She also said she wished she had communicated with her husband that she would have liked to put the matter behind them and start anew.

Honors and awards

Roosevelt received 35 honorary degrees during her life, compared to 31 awarded to her husband.

In 1968, she was awarded one of the United Nations Human Rights Prizes. There was an unsuccessful campaign to award her a posthumous Nobel Peace Prize. Roosevelt is the ninth most admired person in the 20th century.

Controversial personal relationships

In 1928, Eleanor met Associated Press reporter Lorena Hickok, one of the few omen White House correspondents. They became close friends by 1932, and remained so for the rest of their lives. Hickok suggested the idea for what would eventually become Roosevelt’s column My Day. My Day was a daily newspaper column which started in 1935, in which she talked about interesting things that happened to her each day. After a few years away from Washington, Hickok returned in 1940 and lived in the White House with the first family. Highly personal letters between Hickok and Roosevelt are published in Roger Streitmatter's 1998 book Empty Without You: The Intimate Letters of Eleanor Roosevelt and Lorena Hickok.

Later life

While very popular as First Lady, sometimes even ranking higher than her husband in public popularity polls, Roosevelt's popularity increased in her post-White House years. ER was ranked #1 for 15 consecutive years as the "World's Most Popular Woman" from 1946 until 1961 and was up to do so again in 1962 the year she died. In 1961, all volumes of her autobiography were compiled into The Autobiography of Eleanor Roosevelt, which is still in print some 45 years later.

At the age of 75, ER embarked on a new career. Roosevelt was an early member of the Brandeis University Board of Trustees, delivered the University's first commencement speech, and joined the Brandeis faculty as a visiting lecturer in international relations.

Eleanor Roosevelt survived her husband by nearly 20 years. In 1960, at age 76, Roosevelt's health began to fail her. Roosevelt died at her Manhattan apartment. At her memorial service, Adlai Stevenson asked, "What other single human being has touched and transformed the existence of so many?" Stevenson also said that Roosevelt was someone "who would rather light a candle than curse the darkness."

Eleanor Roosevelt was buried next to Franklin D. Roosevelt in Hyde Park, New York on November 10, 1962. So revered was she among the public that a commemorative cartoon published at the time simply showed two angels looking down towards an opening in the clouds with the caption "She's here", since no introduction was needed.

Mrs. Roosevelt maintained a strong loyalty to "Uncle Ted" even nearly forty-five years after his death. Among her belongings was her membership card for the Theodore Roosevelt Association.

After her death, her son Elliott Roosevelt wrote a series of best-selling fictional murder mysteries wherein she acted as a detective, helping the police solve the crime, while she was First Lady. They feature actual places and celebrities of the time.

Quotes

• "You must do the thing you think you cannot do."
• "No one can make you feel inferior without your consent."
• "A mature person is one who does not think only in absolutes, who is able to be objective even when deeply stirred emotionally, who has learned that there is both good and bad in all people and in all things, and who walks humbly and deals charitably with the circumstances of life, knowing that in this world no one is all knowing and therefore all of us need both love and charity."

Bibliography

• Beasley, Maurine H., et al, eds. The Eleanor Roosevelt Encyclopedia (2001) online version
• Beck, Susan Abrams. "Eleanor Roosevelt: The Path to Equality." White House Studies, Vol. 4, 2004 online edition
• Cook, Blanche Wiesen. Eleanor Roosevelt, Vol. 1: 1884-1933 (1992) and Eleanor Roosevelt: Volume 2, The Defining Years, 1933-1938 (2000). the standard scholarly biography
• Lachman, Seymour P. "The Cardinal, the Congressmen, and the First Lady." Journal of Church and State 7 (Winter 1965): 35–66.
• Lash, Joseph. Eleanor and Franklin: The Story of Their Relationship Based on Eleanor Roosevelt's Private Papers (1971). online edition
• Lash, Joseph. Eleanor: The Years Alone (1972) a standard biography; online edition
• Pottker, Jan. Sara and Eleanor: The Story of Sara Delano Roosevelt and Her Daughter-In-Law, Eleanor Roosevelt, St. Martin's Press, 416 pages, ISBN 0-312-30340-8
• Goodwin, Doris Kearns. No Ordinary Time: Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt: The Home Front in World War II, 768 pages, ISBN 0-684-80448-4
• Royal, Mary Mason. "'Maybe You Could Help?' Letters to Eleanor Roosevelt, 1934-1942," Social Education, Vol. 69, 2005 online edition
• Schamel, Wynell. "Dear Mrs. Roosevelt: Letters from Children of the Great Depression," Social Education, Vol. 68, 2004 online edition
• Weidt, Maryann N. Stateswoman to the World: a Story about Eleanor Roosevelt. illus. by Lydia M. Anderson. Lerner Publications, 1991. for middle school audience

Primary sources

• Roosevelt, Eleanor. On My Own, 1958, autobiography online edition
• Roosevelt, Eleanor. The Autobiography of Eleanor Roosevelt (1961) includes 4 volumes of autobiography
• Roosevelt, David B. Grandmère: A Personal History of Eleanor Roosevelt, Warner Books, 2002, 256 pages, ISBN 0-446-52734-3
• Streitmatter, Roger. Empty Without You: The Intimate Letters of Eleanor Roosevelt and Lorena Hickok, Free Press, 1998, 336 pages, ISBN 0-684-84928-3

External links

• Eleanor Roosevelt National Historic Site
• The Eleanor Roosevelt Center at Val-Kill
• The Eleanor Roosevelt Papers
• Endless Work for a Peaceful World - Eleanor Roosevelt at Brandeis University 1960, WNN - Women News Network, Aug. 26, 2006
• Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library and Museum
• National First Ladies' Library
• The Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt Institute
• The Roosevelt Institution, a student think tank inspired in part by Eleanor Roosevelt
• TeddyRoosevelt.com: Information about Eleanor and her favorite, famous uncle Teddy.
• Some of My Best Friends Are Negro: Mrs. Roosevelt and her views on race.
• Online Biographical Sketch at George Washington University's Eleanor Roosevelt Papers Site
• Text and Audio of Eleanor Roosevelt's Address to the United Nations General Assembly
• Audio, photographs and transcript documenting Eleanor Roosevelt's speech to a convocation in Assembly Hall at Ball State Teachers College (now Ball State University) in Muncie, Indiana
• [http://www.gwu.edu/~erpapers/index.html George Washington University's Eleanor Roosevelt Papers Site
• [2], Mrs. Roosevelt dies at 78. New York Times Obituary, November 8, 1962.
• Eleanor & Harry The correspondence between Eleanor Roosevelt and President Harry S. Truman
• Gay Great - Eleanor Roosevelt
• Biography resources dedicated to Eleanor Roosevelt

References

• Faber, Harold. "An Upstate Focus for Eleanor Roosevelt Centennial." New York Times 6 Nov. 1983, Metropolitan Desk: 54. Academic. LEXIS-NEXIS. Indiana University, Bloomington.
• Glendon, M.A. "John P. Humphrey and the Drafting of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights." Journal of the History of International Law 2000: 250-260. Academic Search Premier. EBSCO. Indiana University, Bloomington.
• James, Michael. "Soviet Rights Hit by Mrs. Roosevelt." New York Times 29 Sept. 1948: A4. ABI/Inform Global. ProQuest. Indiana University, Bloomington.
• Kenton, John. "Human Rights Declaration Adopted by U.N. Assembly." New York Times 11 Dec. 1948: A1. ABI/Inform Global. ProQuest. Indiana University, Bloomington.
• Eleanor Roosevelt, The Autobiography of Eleanor Roosevelt, Da Capo Press ed., 1992, paperback, 439 pages, ISBN 0-306-80476-X, dacapopress.com
• Manly, Chesly. "U.N. Adopts 1st Declaration on Human Rights." Chicago Daily Tribune 11 December. 1948: 4. ProQuest. EBSCO. Indiana University, Bloomington.
• Pfeffer, Paula F. "Eleanor Roosevelt and the National and World Women's Parties." Historian Fall 1996: 39-58. Academic Search Premier. EBSCO. Indiana University, Bloomington.
• "The Draft Declaration of Human Rights." The New York Times 19 June 1948. ProQuest. EBSCO. Indiana University, Bloomington.

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