Eleanor Roosevelt: A Brief Biography

The Early Years

Childhood: Eleanor Roosevelt was a shy lonely child. Her beautiful socialite mother

Anna called her “granny.” She adored her father Elliot, brother of President Theodore

Roosevelt, but he was often lost to his family through alcohol and drugs. Her mother and

one brother died when Eleanor was only eight years old and her beloved father died when

she was just ten, leaving her and her youngest brother with strict Grandmother Hall.

Boarding School: Eleanor was sent to Allenswood School in England when she was

fourteen years old. Headmistress Marie Souvestre saw a potential in Eleanor and taught

her about social justice, taking individual responsibility, acting collectively, and working

hard. She bought her student new clothes and they travelled together, always speaking

French. Eleanor said that much of what she became in life “had its seeds in those three

years of contact with a liberal mind and strong personality.”

The Lower East Side: When Eleanor returned to the United States for her debut in

society she coupled the fancy balls and parties with volunteering at the Rivington Street

Settlement House. Helping the Consumers League she learned about gathering

information and the need for legislation to stop sweatshops and child labor.

Marriage: On St. Patrick’s Day, 1905, she was very much in love and married her

dashing fifth cousin Franklin D. Roosevelt. They had six children in ten years and she

learned the managerial skills of moving homes several times a year between New York

City, Hyde Park, the summer home on Campabello off the coast of Maine, and eventually

Washington, DC. When Franklin won a state senate seat, she mastered the art of

backroom politics; women didn’t yet have the right to vote.

Tragedy: During two family tragedies, Eleanor Roosevelt became a political force in her

own right with the help of Franklin’s long time political advisor Louis Howe. Franklin’s

affair with her social secretary tore them a part, but when he was stricken with polio they

established a new and powerful partnership in the 1920s.

Albany: In 1922, Eleanor Roosevelt met Rose Schneiderman and joined the Women’s

Trade Union League. She helped by fundraising, teaching at the club house, joining the

education committee and assisting the worker’s compensation program. She learned

about the “social unionism” of the garment trades, concerned with wages and working

conditions, but also housing, health care, and the cultural lives of their workers. She

walked her first picket line wwith the box makers in 1926. When Franklin became

Governor she helped women secure important positions in his administration, including

Frances Perkins, who became the first woman Cabinet Secretary in FDR’s White House.

Only where they are organized do women get equal pay for equal work, ER 1933

The White House Years

The First Year: First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt was concerned about how to maintain her

independence and usefulness once she was in the White House. In that first year,

however, she wrote an article for Scribner’s magazine, “Protect the Workers: The State’s

Responsibility for Fair Working Conditions,” before the inauguration took place. Her

first book, It’s Up to the Women, was published, she attended a Congressional hearing on

developing labor legislation, began traveling across the country on behalf of the

President, and started a women’s only press conference.

New Deal: ER’s labor coalition grew dramatically, along with the labor movement itself.

She was soon visiting coal mines, writing articles for the miners’ wives, and joining

forces with electrical workers, railroad porters, auto and steel workers, and migrant

laborers. Her first syndicated My Day column appeared on December 31, 1935. She

wrote six days a week and on the first anniversary she joined the American Newspaper

Guild, CIO. Under New Deal legislation organized labor grew from 10% to 23% of the

workforce. By 1940, ER believed unions were a fundamental part of democracy.

World War II: As war loomed, ER resigned from the DAR because of their racist

policies, worked closely with A.Phillip Randolph to end racial discrimination in

government contracting, and testified before Congress on behalf of migrant farm

workers. For women workers she fought for equal pay and family support services and

advised the WTUL to adopt new tactics about the Equal Rights Amendment, saying,

“Women are more highly organized, they are becoming more active as citizens, and

better able to protect themselves.” Her life was threatened for her actions.

Honoring Women: ER attended events to honor union women such as Dorothy

Bellanca, ACWA, who “has drawn other women into the active work of the union.” She

called for engaging women members as active participants in the union even though it

added to their existing list of responsibilities. She encouraged domestic workers to

organize. Maida Springer, ILGWU, and colleagues were among many union women

invited to the White House.

Fourth Term: During the war ER began to work closely with Walter Reuther, the

visionary young leader of the United Automobile Workers. They planned for policies of

full employment at home and economic aid abroad, rather than military containment.

Both she and the President were hesitant about a fourth term, but there seemed little

choice. President Roosevelt’s health was deteriorating rapidly, however, and on April 12,

1945, he passed away. ER told the press that it was the end of her story.

You must doe the thing you think you cannot do. ER, 1960

On Her Own

United Nations: In 1945 President Truman asked Eleanor Roosevelt to become a

delegate to the United Nations. Worried about her lack of qualifications, she reluctantly

agreed. The UN established a commission to bring nations together to agree on some

very basic principles. As chair, she guided a complex international team of philosophers,

lawyers, politicians, diplomats, and trade unionists. Working closely with labor, she also

invited women delegates to her hotel suite for tea, so that they could work better together.

Universal Declaration of Human Rights: While fighting against the anti-union Taft-

Hartley Act at home, under her guidance Article 23 declared that everyone, without

discrimination, has the right to a decent job, fair working conditions, a living wage, equal

pay for equal work, protection from unemployment, and the right to join a union. The

UDHR was passed on December 10, 1948. ER spent the rest of her life taking the

message of human rights around the world. There was no union hall or labor education

program too small to hear her message of cooperation and respect in the world. Workers’

rights are human rights.

Union Reform: ER saw unions as leading the way to the peaceful resolution of economic

disputes and eventually world peace. She called on union leaders to end corruption and

discrimination within the labor movement and live up to their high ideals. She opposed

the Landrum-Griffin Act, and led a committee to defeat right to work laws in six states,

accusing the Chamber of Commerce and the National Association of Manufactures of

arguments that were “predatory and misleading.” She was a keynote speaker at the AFL-

CIO merger convention. Her civil rights efforts moved from “patience to protest.”

Public Sector: ER struggled with issues of public sector unions, but in the end she came

down strongly in support of teachers and hospital workers, police and fire fighters having

a voice at work. Managers were little different from those in private industry. When

teachers went on strike in 1962, she wrote that “under the present set-up teachers have no

other recourse but to strike to draw attention to their legitimate complaints.”

The Kennedy Years: In 1961, Eleanor Roosevelt’s life came full circle. President

Kennedy asked her to serve as chair on the first President’s Commission on the Status of

Women. Led by labor activist Esther Peterson, they began to assess progress and

problems for women. She took the young President a list of women’s names for his

administration and invited him to her television show, The Prospects for Mankind. Walter

and May Reuther were the last friends to visit ER at her home in Val—Kill. On

November 7, 1962, at the age of seventy-eight, Eleanor Roosevelt passed away. The

AFL-CIO concluded their tribute to her saying that, “She was one of us.”