Anna Eleanor Roosevelt was called "First Lady of the World." In the course of her life, ER became a leading figure on the issue of women's emancipation. Well before her life in the White House she was active in the Democratic Party and women's labor unions such as the Women's Trade Union League (WTUL) and the International Ladies Garment Workers Union (ILGWU). During the Second World War she became co-chair of the national committee on Civilian Defense and advocated for women's participation in the war effort. She incorporated these issues into a wider range of social and political concerns such as civil rights, human rights, youth and democracy.
Although ER was well known for all these huge society activity, at her early age she was a shy girl. Anna Eleanor Roosevelt was born in New York City in 1884. She was the daughter of Elliot Roosevelt, brother of future president Theodore Roosevelt, and Anna Ludlow Hall. Her father, although loving, was an alcoholic; her mother was cold and disapproving. By the time she was eight, both of her parents had died, so she went to live with her grandmother. Awkward and shy, she was sent to finishing school in England when she was 15. Here the withdrawn Roosevelt blossomed, excelling in languages and literature and becoming popular for the first time in her life.
When she returned to New York City at age 17, Roosevelt refused to take part in the activities of high society. Instead, she chose to work toward social reforms. She taught dancing and literature at community centers and visited needy children in the slums. Through her work, she gained an intimate knowledge of how the poor actually lived. During this time, she met her fifth cousin Franklin D. Roosevelt. Against his mother's wishes, they were married on March 17, 1905. Her uncle, President Theodore Roosevelt, gave her away at the wedding. Over the next ten years, she gave birth to six children (one died in infancy).
Neither her family nor her husband's growing political career prevented Roosevelt from pursuing her own social concerns. While he served in Washington as assistant secretary of the navy during World War I, she worked with the Red Cross. She visited wounded troops in the Naval Hospital and worked to improve conditions at a hospital for the mentally ill. After Roosevelt and her husband returned to New York in 1920, she became active in movements calling for equal rights for women and better working conditions for female employees.
In the summer of 1921, Roosevelt's life changed drastically. While vacationing on an island off the coast of Maine, her husband was stricken with an attack of poliomyelitis (polio). The disease left him permanently paralyzed from the waist down. Determined to maintain her husband's political links, she quickly learned public speaking and political organization. Over the next few years, she campaigned for Democratic candidates in New York and worked for the women's division of the party.
In 1928 Roosevelt's husband was elected governor of New York. She then became his "legs," inspecting state hospitals, prisons, and homes for the elderly. In 1932 he was elected to the first of four presidential terms, giving her a national platform from which to address her concerns. Roosevelt forever changed the role of the First Lady. She began holding weekly press conferences, speaking only to women reporters mainly on women's issues. In 1935 she started writing a column, "My Day," which appeared in national newspapers. For its first three years, "My Day" focused on the concerns of women. By 1939, however, Roosevelt was addressing general political topics in her column.
This change reflected the increasing role Roosevelt played in her husband's policy decisions. More than anyone in the White House, she brought the cause of the oppressed to her husband's attention. She championed the struggle of Appalachian farmers to reclaim their land, and she made sure African Americans were receiving relief from New Deal programs. Throughout her reign as First Lady, she argued against all forms of discrimination. Roosevelt was especially concerned with the condition of America's youth during the Depression. In 1935 she helped found the National Youth Administration, which gave thousands of high school and college students part-time work.
It used to be said that all that time she was her husband ears, and eyes but it was never not as simple as all that for one thing she was her husband wife and had to take that consequencies. Today looking to her biography everybody realizes that It was uneasy life year by year for Eleanor Roosevelt. The marriage was not easy but was never broken. The relationship between husband and wife took a sharp turn in 1918. It was a defining moment when ER discovered that her husband had been having an affair with her former social secretary Lucy Mercer. The romantic aspect of her marriage ceased to exist, but her husband’s political ambitions made divorce impossible. She dicided stayed together with her husband and established a completely new relationship. Became in many respects his representative to the outside world when, for example, he was unable to travel.
Being the wife of an successful politician brought many possibilities, but ER had always been careful not to inhibit or contradict her husband's objectives, and set careful parameters for her conduct. The circles that Eleanor was raised in cast her in the role of helpmate wife. This position should have placed her outside of the political arena. The day that FDR was elected, November 8, 1932, ER was happy for her husband but feared the responsibilities that she would have to bear as manager of the White House household. Lorena Hickok, a journalist and friend with whom ER possibly had an amorous relationship, quoted ER in her 1962 book Eleanor Roosevelt, Reluctant First Lady as saying after the 1932 presidential elections: "For him, of course, I'm glad--sincerely. I could not have wanted it any other way. After all I'm a Democrat, too. Now I shall have to work out my own salvation. I'm afraid it may be a little difficult. I know what Washington is like, I've lived there." Immediately the national spotlight moved to follow ER, and she had to make changes in her life that she resisted strongly. But through all that she believe that “It is better to light a candle than curse the darkness”, better for her for always fighting for the greater good of society that would lead many people into solution and better world rather than just cursing uncomfortable she felt inside. This own choice to fight for the greater good of society coupled with any others outside influences produced a powerful mix that resulted in Mrs. Roosevelt, the First Lady of formidable political stature.
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