One of the most controversial first ladies of our time, Eleanor Roosevelt was a driven, independent thinker. Through her position and helped by her powerful husband, Franklin Roosevelt, she worked to make the New Deal. Eleanor's discovery of Franklin's affair with her social secretary, Lucy Page Mercer, in 1918 was a turning point in their marriage. Although the affair ended and the Roosevelts reconciled, Eleanor resolved to have a career of her own. She became involved in the League of Women Voters and the Women's Trade Union League. In 1921 Eleanor began to work politically on behalf of Franklin, who had been stricken with poliomyelitis after his unsuccessful bid for the vice presidency in 1920. She became active in Democratic party politics as a means of keeping her handicapped husband's political career alive. When he was elected to the presidency in 1932, Eleanor continued to assist him, and although she held no office, she soon became an influential figure in his administration. Eleanor, who was known to be more liberal than the president, 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. Eleanor was a U.S. delegate to the United Nations from 1945 to 1953 and she chaired the commission that drafted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. As a leader of human rights, she strove to further women�s causes, as well as the causes of black, poor and unemployed people. �Do what you feel in your heart to be right- for you'll be criticized anyway. You'll be damned if you do, and damned if you don't.� - Eleanor Roosevelt
Article By Alexander S
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