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ROOSEVELT, ELEANOR 1884-1962

FIRST LADY OF THE UNITED STATES (1933-1945)

Political Influence

Though not an elected or appointed governmental official, Eleanor Roosevelt, wife of President Franklin D. Roosevelt, was a towering figure in the politics of her day. In her travels, lectures, and writing, she promoted a liberal political agenda. Her discussions with her husband and her reports to him on what she had seen and heard on her travels were important in determining Roosevelt's political strategies. James Farley, an important adviser and campaign manager to Roosevelt, called her "the most practical woman I've ever met in politics."

Background

A distant cousin of Franklin D. Roosevelt, Anna Eleanor Roosevelt was born into a patrician family whose history stretched back to the colonial era, but her early life was not an easy one. Both of her parents died when she was a young girl. In 1899 she was sent to London, England, to study at a private boarding school for three years. As she was later to recount, she received intellectual and emotional support from the headmistress at the school. In 1905 she and Franklin Roosevelt married. Soon her life was filled with the demands of five children and a politician husband. During World War I her involvement in organizing a soldiers' canteen and her activities for the Red Cross led to a concern for social welfare that would shape her life's work.

Humanitarian, Feminist, Civil Rights

Activist. Eleanor Roosevelt spoke out, both privately and publicly, on a variety of issues. Though she opposed the Equal Rights Amendment during the 1930s (believing that women needed special protection at work), she was, nevertheless, a powerful force for women's rights. Many historians credit President Roosevelt's appointment of the first woman cabinet member—Secretary of Labor Frances Perkins •—to his wife's influence. The first lady worked for children's rights, showed compassion for working people and the unemployed, and promoted civil rights. "I always looked at everything from the point of view of what I ought to do, rarely from what I wanted to do," she once commented. Beginning in January 1936 she wrote a syndicated newspaper column, My Dayy in which she put a human face on many of the pressing political issues of the day.

Civil Rights for African

Americans. Supporting civil rights for African Americans, Eleanor Roosevelt championed a federal antilynching law and successfully pressed for the appointment of African American activist Mary McLeod Bethune to the National Youth Administration. In 1939, after the Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR) refused to let African American vocalist Marian Anderson rent their Constitution Hall for a concert, the first lady personally invited Anderson to perform at the Lincoln Memorial, where she attracted a crowd of seventy-five thousand people. Eleanor Roosevelt resigned her membership in the DAR over the incident. During World War II she directed her efforts toward helping wounded veterans and Jewish refugees from Hitler's Ger-many. When she died at age seventy-eight, she was mourned by many as "First Lady of the World."