Anna Eleanor Roosevelt

Anna Eleanor Roosevelt

Eleanor Roosevelt was born in New York City on October 11, 1884, daughter of lovely Anna Hall and Elliott Roosevelt, younger brother of Theodore. When her mother died in 1892, the children went to live with Grandmother Hall; her adored father died only two years later. Attending a distinguished school in England gave her, at 15, her first chance to develop self-confidence among other girls.

Eleanor married her fifth cousin, Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Tthey became the parents of six children. In World War 1, she became active in the American Red Cross and in volunteer work in Navy hospitals. Franklin Roosevelt was stricken with polio in 1921. Mrs. Roosevelt became active in politics both to help him maintain his interests and to assert her own personality and goals. She was in the League of Women Voters, and the Women's Trade Union League, and worked for the Women's Division of the New York State Democratic Committee. She helped to found Val-Kill Industries, a furniture factory in Hyde Park, New York, and taught at the Todhunter School, a private girls’ school in New York City.

Franklin D. Roosevelt became President in 1933. Eleanor Roosevelt was an active First Lady who traveled around the nation, visiting relief projects, surveying working and living conditions, and then reporting to the President. She added her own political and social influence. She became active with helping the poor and minorities. During World War II, she visited England and the South Pacific for good will with the Allies and boost the morale of US servicemen overseas.

After President Roosevelt's death, Mrs. Roosevelt was in the United States Delegation to the United Nations General Assembly, a position she held until 1953. She was chairman of the Human Rights Commission during the drafting of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

Eleanor Roosevelt was a popular speaker and lecturer in person and on radio and television. She was a writer with many articles and books. What was most interesting about Eleanor Roosevelt was that