Thursday, 11 October 2018

11 October: Eleanor Roosevelt

Eleanor Roosevelt, born 11 October 1884, was the wife of President Franklin D. Roosevelt and the longest serving First Lady of the United States.


  1. As well as being the wife of a president, she was also the niece of one. President Theodore Roosevelt was her uncle on her father's side. Her husband Franklin was her father's fifth cousin.
  2. Eleanor was her middle name. Her first name was Anna, but she didn't like it so she used her middle name instead.
  3. Her mother died when she was eight, and her father when she was ten. She was brought up by her grandmother from the age of eight.
  4. Eleanor met her husband Franklin on a train. They corresponded in secret before becoming engaged. Eleanor's future mother in law, Sara Ann Delano, disapproved. She insisted that the engagement not be announced publicly for a year, and took Franklin away on a Caribbean cruise in the hope that the romance would fizzle out. It didn't. Franklin and Eleanor were married in New York on March 17. President Theodore Roosevelt gave the bride away.
  5. Eleanor's relationship with her mother in law didn't improve. Sara provided the couple with a townhouse, but it was joined to her own, and connected by sliding doors so Sara could run both households. She even controlled the bringing up of Eleanor's children, saying to them, "Your mother only bore you, I am more your mother than your mother is."
  6. That said, when Franklin started an affair with Eleanor's social secretary, Lucy Mercer, Sara threatened to disinherit Franklin if he divorced Eleanor. His political advisor Louis Howe also advised him against it. The couple remained married, although from then on their marriage was more of a political partnership, with Eleanor becoming more and more active in public life.
  7. Eleanor Roosevelt was the first presidential spouse to hold regular press conferences, write newspaper and magazine columns, host a weekly radio show, and speak at a national party convention. She didn't always agree with her husband's policies, either. Many of her 348 press conferences were open only to women journalists, since her husband's usually excluded them. This had the effect that more women journalists were hired by newspapers, so they could make sure they had someone in attendance. Her column, “My Day,” ran from 1935 to 1962. She only missed one week, after her husband died. She also earned 35 Honorary Degrees, while Franklin received only 31.
  8. She was a friend of Amelia Earhart, who took her flying. Eleanor enjoyed flying so much that she applied for a pilot's licence herself but never actually learned to fly.
  9. At a conference in Birmingham, Alabama, in 1938, Eleanor ignored the fact that the seating was racially segregated and sat herself next to an African American delegate. When officials told her she couldn't sit there because of the segregation policy, Eleanor asked for a ruler. She measured the distance between the black and white seating areas, and placed her chair in the middle of the gap. No-one dared challenge her, so she sat there for the entire meeting.
  10. She had a Rose named after her. Rosa x hybrida “Mrs. Franklin D. Roosevelt” is a hybrid tea rose discovered in 1933. It is said that Eleanor once quipped, "I once had a rose named after me and I was very flattered. But I was not pleased to read the description in the catalogue: no good in a bed, but fine up against a wall." However, there is no evidence she ever actually said it.

See also
Quotes by Eleanor Roosevelt




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