Eleanor Roosevelt

By Ruben Sanchez

Loading...

This is a book about Eleanor Roosevelt and how she made an impact in woman rights and who she was.

Loading...

Loading...

Early Life

Loading...

Eleanor Roosevelt is the daughter Elliott Roosevelt and Anna Hall Roosevelt and the niece of Theodore Roosevelt who was the 26th president. She grew up in a wealthy family. But both her parents died at the age of 10 and one of her brothers died when she was 9. She and her surviving brother were raised by relatives the death of her father was very hard for her because she had a pretty close bond with him.

Loading...

Education

At age 15 Eleanor enrolled at Allenswood a girls boarding school outside London where she came under the influence of the French headmistress Marie Souvestre. Souvestre's curiosity and her taste for travel and excellence in everything but sports which interested Eleanor because she had similar interests. Eleanor described it as the three best years of her life.

Her Love

Soon after Eleanor returned to New York, Franklin Roosevelt, her distant cousin began to court her, and they were married on March 17, 1905. Between 1906 and 1916 Eleanor gave birth to six children, one of whom died in infancy.

U.S. Volunteer

With the entry of the United States into World War I in April 1917, Eleanor was able to resume her volunteer work. She visited wounded soldiers and worked for the Navy Marine Corps Relief Society. This work increased her sense of self worth and she wrote after “I loved i I simply ate it up.”

The Affair

In 1918 Eleanor discovered that Franklin had been having an affair with her social secretary Lucy Mercer. It was one of the most traumatic events in her life as she later told Joseph Lash her friend and biographer. Mindful of his political career and fearing the loss of his mother’s financial support Franklin refused Eleanor’s offer of a divorce and agreed to stop seeing Mercer.

DAR

In 1939, when the Daughters of the American Revolution refused to let Marian Anderson an African American opera singer, perform in Constitution Hall Eleanor resigned her membership in the DAR and arranged to hold the concert at the nearby Lincoln Memorial the event turned into a massive outdoor celebration attended by 75,000 people.