Anna Eleanor Roosevelt

Anna Eleanor Roosevelt (October 11 1884 - November 7 1962) was an American human rights activist, diplomat and as the wife of U.S. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, the longest acting First Lady. An active First Lady, she traveled around the United States promoting the New Deal and visited troops at the frontlines during World War II. She was a first-wave Feminist and an active supporter of the American Civil Rights Movement.

Mrs. Roosevelt was active in the formations of numerous institutions most notably the United Nations, United Nations Association and Freedom House. She chaired the committee that drafted and approved the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. President Harry S. Truman called her the First Lady of the World, in honor of her extensive travels to promote human rights.

Mrs. Roosevelt was the eldest child of Elliot Roosevelt and Anna Hall Roosevelt and was a favorite niece of Theodore Roosevelt. On St. Patrick's Day, 1905 she married a fifth cousin, Franklin Delano Roosevelt.

In 1939, the opera singer Marian Anderson was refused permission to perform at Constitution Hall in Washington because of her skin color. Mrs. Roosevelt arranged for Anderson to perform from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, to a live audience of 70,000, and a nationwide radio audience.

Mrs. Roosevelt opposed her husband's decision to sign Executive Order 9066 which resulted in the internment of 110,000 Japanese nationals and American citizens of Japanese descent in internment camps on the U.S. West Coast. In 1943 Mrs. Roosevelt, along with Wendell Willkie and other Americans concerned about the mounting threats to peace and democracy during World War II, established Freedom House.

After World War II, she was instrumental along with John Peters Humphrey and others in formulating the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights. On the night of December 10, 1948, Mrs. Roosevelt spoke on behalf of the Declaration calling it "the international Magna Carta of all mankind," and the Declaration was unanimously adopted by the General Assembly later that night.

In 1954 Tammany Hall boss Carmine DeSapio campaigned against her son, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Jr., in the New York Attorney General election and successfully defeated him. Mrs. Roosevelt held DeSapio responsible for her son's defeat and grew increasingly disgusted with his political conduct through the rest of the 1950s. Eventually, she would join with her old friends Herbert Lehman and Thomas Finletter to form the New York Committee for Democratic Voters, a group dedicated to enhancing the democratic process by opposing DeSapio's reincarnated Tammany. Eventually their efforts were successful, and in 1961 DeSapio was removed from power.

Mrs. Roosevelt was a close friend of Adlai Stevenson and was a strong supporter of his candidacies in the 1952 and 1956 presidential elections. When President Truman backed New York Governor W. Averell Harriman, who was a close associate of Carmine DeSapio, for the Democratic presidential nomination, Mrs. Roosevelt was disappointed but continued to support Stevenson who ultimately won the nomination. She backed Stevenson once again in 1960 but John F. Kennedy received the presidential nomination instead.

She was responsible for the establishment of the 2,800 acre (11 km&sup2) Roosevelt Campobello International Park on Campobello Island, New Brunswick in 1964 following a gift of the Roosevelt summer estate to the Canadian and American governments.

After her death, her son Elliot Roosevelt wrote a series of best-selling fictional murder mysteries wherein she acted as a detective, helping the police solve the crime, while she was First Lady. They feature actual places and celebrities of the time.

See also

• Molly Yard