Anna Eleanor Roosevelt (October 11, 1884 – November 7, 1962) was
an American politician, diplomat, and activist. She was the longest-serving First Lady of the United States,
having held the post from March 1933 to April 1945 during her husband President Franklin D. Roosevelt's four terms in
office, and served as United
States Delegate to the United
Nations General Assembly from
1945 to 1952. President Harry S. Truman later called her the "First Lady
of the World" in tribute to her human rights achievements.
Roosevelt
was a member of the prominent American Roosevelt and Livingston families and a niece of President Theodore Roosevelt's. She had an unhappy childhood, having
suffered the deaths of both parents and one of her brothers at a young age. At
15, she attended Allenwood Academy in London and was deeply influenced by its
feminist headmistress Marie
Souvestre. Returning to the U.S., she married her fifth cousin once removed,
Franklin Delano Roosevelt, in 1905. The Roosevelts' marriage was complicated
from the beginning by Franklin's controlling mother, Sara, and after discovering an affair
of her husband's with Lucy Mercer in 1918, Roosevelt resolved to seek
fulfillment in a public life of her own. She persuaded Franklin to stay in
politics after he was stricken
with debilitating polio in 1921,
which cost him the use of his legs, and Roosevelt began giving speeches and
appearing at campaign events in his place. Following Franklin's election as Governor of New York in 1928, and throughout the remainder
of Franklin's public career in government, Roosevelt regularly made public
appearances on his behalf, and as First Lady while her husband served as
President, she significantly reshaped and redefined the role of that office
during her own tenure and beyond, for future First Ladies.
Though
widely respected in her later years, Roosevelt was a controversial First Lady
for her outspokenness, particularly her stance on racial issues. She was the
first presidential spouse to hold press conferences, write a syndicated
newspaper column, and speak at a national convention. On a few occasions, she
publicly disagreed with her husband's policies. She launched an experimental
community at Arthurdale, West
Virginia, for the families of unemployed miners, later widely regarded as a
failure. She advocated for expanded roles for women in the workplace, the civil rights of African Americans and Asian
Americans, and the rights of World War II refugees.
Following
her husband's death, Roosevelt remained active in politics for the rest of her
life. She pressed the United States to join
and support the United Nations and became its first delegate. She
served as the first chair of the UN
Commission on Human Rights, and oversaw the drafting of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
Later she chaired the John F.
Kennedy administration’s
Presidential Commission on the Status of Women. By the time of her death,
Roosevelt was regarded as "one of the most esteemed women in the
world"; she was called "the object of almost universal respect"
in her New York Times obituary. In 1999, she was ranked ninth in the
top ten of Gallup's List of Most
Widely Admired People of the 20th Century.
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