Eleanor Roosevelt was an American politician, diplomat, and activist. She was born in New York City in 1884. Roosevelt married Franklin in 1905 when she was just nineteen years old, after a whirlwind romance and they had six children together.
She served as the First Lady of the United States from 1933 to 1945 during her husband Franklin D. Roosevelt’s four terms as President. Eleanor became an advocate for women’s rights while still in her twenties, joining the National American Woman Suffrage Association. Roosevelt also joined welfare boards in New York state, working among those most vulnerable to poverty. In 1932, she campaigned for her husband’s presidential campaign while he was running against incumbent President Herbert Hoover. After he won the election, Eleanor Roosevelt set up multiple programs aimed at helping those hurt by the Great Depression.
Roosevelt also served as a delegate to the United Nations General Assembly. During her time as a delegate, she helped draft and pass a Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which became a covenant after fifty countries signed it. The document is still in effect today and has been translated into more than 500 languages.
She also traveled extensively abroad during World War II to visit injured troops as a representative of her husband, who was then serving as president.
Eleanor Roosevelt was widowed in 1945. She died in 1962.
