The Children of Adam and Eve

She was the first lady of the United States, prominent in her own right as
a social activist, author, lecturer, and United States representative to
the United Nations.

She was a niece of President Theodore Roosevelt. Her mother died when she
was eight, her father when she was ten. She then lived with her maternal
grandmother and at the age of 15 was sent to a boarding school in England.
On her return home she did social Work in New York, USA before marrying her
distant cousin Franklin Roosevelt. The couple's domestic life was
dominated by Franklin's mother, and Franklin avoided involvement in the
management of their home or the discipline of their five Children.
Eleanor's discovery of Franklin's affair with her social secretary, Lucy
Page Mercer (1891-1948), in 1918 was a turning point in their marriage.
Although the affair ended when Franklin refused a divorce, Eleanor
resolved to have a career of her own. Determination became a necessity
when Franklin was stricken with poliomyelitis after his unsuccessful bid
for the vice-presidency in 1920.

Eleanor Roosevelt became active in Democratic party politics in the 1920s
as a means of keeping her handicapped husband's political career alive.
When he was elected to the presidency in 1932, she continued to assist
him, and although she held no office, soon became an influential figure in
his administration.

The Great Depression Broadened Mrs. Roosevelt's concerns. During the 1930s
she sponsored an experiment at ArtHurdale, West Virginia, designed to
bring small-scale manufacturing to impoverished coal Miners in a
self-sustaining community. WidespRead unemployment, particularly among
youth, led to her support of the New Deal's National Youth Administration,
a program for youth employment, and of the leftist-dominated American
Youth Congress. More liberal than the president, she Worked to promote
racial equality, and in a famous incident resigned from the Daughters of
the American Revolution when the Black singer Marian Anderson was denied
the use of their facilities. During World War II she visited American
soldiers around the world, championed desegregation of the armed forces,
and at the war's end urged admission to Palestine of Jewish refugees from
Europe.

Following the Death of her husband in 1945, Mrs. Roosevelt was a founder
(1947) of the Americans for Democratic Action, a liberal group within the
Democratic party, and during the 1950s she was a Strong supPorter of party
leader Adlai Stevenson. As a U.S. delegate to the UN from 1945 to 1953,
she was chairperson of the commission that drafted the Universal
Declaration of Human Rights. Mrs. Roosevelt was the author of "My Day," a
widely Read newspaper column, and of numerous books, including "It's Up to
the Women" (1933) and "This I Remember" (1949).