Eleanor Roosevelt

22 Biographical Facts

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1. Anna Eleanor Roosevelt was born on October 11, 1884, in New York City. Her father, Elliott Roosevelt (1860-1894) was the younger brother of Theodore Roosevelt, and her mother, Anna Hall (1863-1892), was from a wealthy New York family. Roosevelt’s father was an alcoholic and her parents’ marriage was troubled. After her mother died of diphtheria in 1892 (her father died less than two years later), Roosevelt and her two younger brothers, Elliott Roosevelt Jr. (1889-1893) and Gracie Hall Roosevelt (1891-1941), lived with their grandmother, Mary Ludlow Hall (1843-1919), in Manhattan and Tivoli, New York. 2. Roosevelt, an awkward, serious child, was educated by private tutors until age 15 when she was sent to Allenswood Academy, a school for girls in England. She excelled under the mentorship of the school’s headmistress, Marie Souvestre (1830-1905), who promoted social responsibility and independence for young women. Roosevelt’s formal education ended at age 18 when she returned to New York City and made her social debut at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel. She then became actively involved with social reform work, serving as a volunteer teacher for impoverished immigrant children at Manhattan’s Rivington Street Settlement House and joining the National Consumers’ League, whose mission was to end unsafe working conditions and labor practices in factories and other businesses. 3. On March 17, 1905, 20-year-old Eleanor married Franklin Roosevelt, a 22-year-old Harvard University student and her fifth cousin once removed. The two had met as children and became reacquainted after Eleanor returned from school in England. Their wedding took place at the home of one of Eleanor’s relatives on Manhattan’s Upper East Side, and the bride was escorted down the aisle by then-President Theodore Roosevelt. Franklin and Eleanor had six children, five of whom survived to adulthood: Anna (1906-1975), James (1907-1991), Elliott (1910-1990), Franklin Jr. (1914-1988) and John (1916-1981). 4. In 1910, Franklin Roosevelt began his political career when he was elected to the New York State Senate. Three years later, he was appointed assistant secretary of the U.S. Navy, a position he held until 1920 when he made an unsuccessful run for the U.S. vice presidency on a ticket headed by James Cox (1870-1957), an Ohio governor. In addition to raising her family during these years, Eleanor Roosevelt volunteered with the American Red Cross and in Navy hospitals during World War I (1914-1918). In the 1920s, she became active in Democratic Party politics and was also involved with such activist organizations as the Women’s Union Trade League and the League of Women Voters. Additionally, she cofounded Val-Kill Industries, a nonprofit furniture factory in Hyde Park, New York (where the Roosevelt family estate, Springwood, was located), and taught American history and literature at the Todhunter School, a private Manhattan girls’ school. 5. In 1921, Franklin Roosevelt was diagnosed with polio, which left him paralyzed from the waist down. Eleanor encouraged her husband’s return to politics, and in 1928 he was elected governor of New York. Six years later, Roosevelt was elected to the White House. 6. Eleanor Roosevelt was initially reluctant to step into the role of first lady, fearful about losing her hard-won autonomy and knowing she would have to give up her Todhunter teaching job and other activities and organizations she cared about. However, after Franklin Roosevelt was sworn in as president in March 1933, Eleanor began to transform the conventional role of first lady from social hostess to that of a more visible, active participant in her husband’s administration. 7. The Roosevelts entered the White House in the midst of the Great Depression (which began in 1929 and lasted approximately a decade), and the president and Congress soon implemented a series of economic recovery initiatives known as the New Deal. As first lady, Eleanor traveled across the United States, acting as her husband’s eyes and ears and reporting back to him after she visited government institutions and programs and numerous other facilities. She was an early champion of civil rights for African Americans as well as an advocate for American workers, the poor, young people, and women during the Great Depression. She also supported government-funded programs for artists and writers. 8. Roosevelt encouraged her husband to appoint more women to federal positions, and she held hundreds of press conferences for female reporters only at a time when women were typically barred from White House press conferences. Additionally, Roosevelt wrote a syndicated newspaper column entitled “My Day” from December 1935 until shortly before her death in 1962. She used the column to share information about her activities and communicate her positions on a wide range of social and political issues. 9. During World War II (1939-1945), Roosevelt advocated on behalf of European refugees who wanted to come to the United States. She also promoted issues that were important to American troops, worked to boost soldiers’ morale, encouraged volunteerism on the home front, and championed women employed in the defense industry. She also pushed for the continuation of New Deal programs during the war, against the wishes of some of her husband’s advisors. 10. The Roosevelts had one of the most notable political partnerships in American history, as well as a complex personal relationship. Early on in their marriage, in 1918, Eleanor discovered her husband was having an affair with her social secretary, Lucy Mercer (1891-1948). Eleanor offered Franklin a divorce; however, he chose to stay in the marriage for various reasons, including the fact that divorce carried a social stigma and would have hurt his political career. 11. Experts have suggested that Roosevelt’s infidelity prompted Eleanor to become increasingly independent and further devote herself to political and social causes. Although Franklin Roosevelt agreed never to see Mercer again, the two resumed contact, and she was with the president in Warm Springs, Georgia, when he died from a cerebral hemorrhage on April 12, 1945, at age 63. The previous November, Roosevelt had been elected to an unprecedented fourth term as president. 12. Eleanor's continued support of the civil rights movement and an anti-lynching bill earned her the ire of the Ku Klux Klan, who put a $25,000 bounty on her head in the 1960s. 13. Eleanor Roosevelt famously resigned from the Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR) when it barred African American singer Marian Anderson from performing at its Constitution Hall in Washington, D.C. 14. Eleanor Roosevelt’s work on behalf of human rights was amplified by her work with the United Nations (U.N.), which was founded two months after the end of World War II. President Harry Truman appointed Eleanor Roosevelt to be part of the first U.S. delegation to the U.N., and she went on to chair the Human Rights Committee. 15. In September 1948, Eleanor Roosevelt delivered her most famous speech, “The Struggle for Human Rights,” which urged U.N. members to vote to pass the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, a now-defining document on the global stage. Her speech read, in part, “The basic problem confronting the world today… is the preservation of human freedom for the individual and consequently for the society of which he is a part.” The Universal Declaration of Human Rights was formally adopted on December 10, 1948. 16. SIDEBAR: J. Edgar Hoover (1895-1972), the longtime director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, considered Eleanor Roosevelt’s liberal views dangerous and believed she might be involved in communist activities. He ordered his agents to monitor Roosevelt and keep what became an extensive file on her. 17. The Roosevelts had one of the most notable political partnerships in American history, as well as a complex personal relationship. Early on in their marriage, in 1918, Eleanor discovered her husband was having an affair with her social secretary, Lucy Mercer (1891-1948). Eleanor offered Franklin a divorce; however, he chose to stay in the marriage for various reasons, including the fact that divorce carried a social stigma and would have hurt his political career. 18. Experts have suggested that Roosevelt’s infidelity prompted Eleanor to become increasingly independent and further devote herself to political and social causes. Although Franklin Roosevelt agreed never to see Mercer again, the two resumed contact, and she was with the president in Warm Springs, Georgia, when he died from a cerebral hemorrhage on April 12, 1945, at age 63. The previous November, Roosevelt had been elected to an unprecedented fourth term as president. 19. After the president’s death, Eleanor Roosevelt returned to New York, splitting her time between her Val-Kill cottage (the former furniture factory was turned into a home) in Hyde Park and an apartment in New York City. There was speculation she would run for public office; instead, she chose to remain highly active as a private citizen. 20. From 1946 to 1953, Roosevelt served as a U.S. delegate to the United Nations, where she oversaw the drafting and passage of the Universal Human Declaration of Rights. Roosevelt considered the document, which continues to serve as a model for how people and nations should treat each other, one of her most significant achievements. From 1961 until her death the following year, Roosevelt headed the first Presidential Commission on the Status of Women, at the request of President John Kennedy (1917-1963). She also served on the board of numerous organizations, including the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and the Advisory Council for the Peace Corps. 21. Roosevelt remained involved in Democratic Party activities during her post-White House years, campaigning for candidates around the country. Additionally, she hosted radio programs and a television news show and continued to write her newspaper column and give lectures. Throughout her life, Roosevelt wrote 27 books and more than 8,000 columns. 22. Eleanor Roosevelt died at age 78 on November 7, 1962, in New York City from aplastic anemia, tuberculosis, and heart failure. Her funeral was attended by President Kennedy and former presidents Harry Truman (1884-1972) and Dwight D. Eisenhower (1890-1969). She was buried next to her husband on the grounds of the Roosevelt estate in Hyde Park.

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WHITE HOUSE OVERVIEW: https://www.whitehouse.gov/about-the-white-house/first-families/anna-eleanor-roosevelt/FDR LIBRARY OVERVIEW: https://www.fdrlibrary.org/er-biographyBRITANNICA BIOGRAPHY: https://www.britannica.com/biography/Eleanor-RooseveltNATIONAL PARK OVERVIEW: https://www.nps.gov/people/eleanor-roosevelt.htmHISTORY CHANNEL OVERVIEW: https://www.history.com/topics/first-ladies/eleanor-rooseveltEXTENDED BIOGRAPHY: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eleanor_RooseveltNATIONAL PARK BIOGRAPHY: https://www.nps.gov/people/eleanor-roosevelt.htm LORENA HICKOK: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lorena_HickokABC (AUSTRALIA) HICKOK: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-06-28/eleanor-roosevelt-lorena-hickok-white-houses-love-affair/9918614NY TIMES (HICKOK): https://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/16/books/review/eleanor-and-hick-susan-quinn.htmlEARL MILLER: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earl_Miller_(bodyguard)EARL MILLER: https://www.nps.gov/people/earl-miller.htmWNYC INTERVIEW ABOUT RUSSIA VISIT: https://www.wnyc.org/story/eleanor-roosevelts-trip-russia/ 1957 CIVIL RIGHTS ACT: https://crdl.usg.edu/events/civil_rights_act_1957 SPEECH AT HIGHLANDER 1958: https://teva.contentdm.oclc.org/digital/collection/highlander/id/1087 SARA ROOSEVELT: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sara_Roosevelt

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SS Quanza
Bernard Baruch

ER and the Jews

THE US HOLOCAUST MUSEUM: https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/eleanor-roosevelt
1. USCOM In June of 1940, Eleanor formed a committee to coordinate rescue efforts for children who were refugees and/or victims of the War. She called a meeting at her New York residence with representatives of the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC), the German-Jewish Children’s Aid, and other organizations to form the US Committee for the Care of European Children (USCOM). Chicago department store magnate and philanthropist Marshall Field III was asked to chair the committee and oversee fundraising, but the driving force behind its work was Eleanor. The first task of the committee was to figure out how, logistically, the children could enter the United States outside of the stringent immigration quotas that were put in place after World War I. Eleanor and the other members of USCOM recognized that the fastest way to admit refugee children to the United States was on temporary visitor visas, which could be issued as long as the children planned to return home when it was safe again and exempted the children from needing individual financial affidavits. Since the children were all under the age of fourteen, the State Department could not reasonably claim that any of them could be spies or saboteurs. Between June and September 1940, when conditions in occupied Europe and the dangers of crossing the Atlantic caused the committee to suspend its evacuation efforts from Great Britain, just over 800 children were rescued and resettled in American homes. With Eleanor's continued support, USCOM continued their work, refocusing from Great Britain to Western Europe, particularly on children in Vichy France. The AFSC chose children, both Jewish and non-Jewish, from children's homes and refugee camps in southern France for transfer to the United States. By 1943, the committee had succeeded in rescuing several hundred Jewish children from Western Europe. 2. The St. Louis MS St. Louis was a diesel-powered passenger ship operated by the Hamburg America Line. The ship was named after the city of St. Louis, Missouri. St. Louis regularly sailed the trans-Atlantic route from Hamburg to Halifax, Nova Scotia, and New York City, and made cruises to the Canary Islands, Madeira, Spain; and Morocco. St. Louis was built for both transatlantic liner service and for leisure cruises. During the build-up to World War II, the St. Louis carried more than 900 Jewish refugees from Nazi Germany in 1939 intending to escape anti-Semitic persecution. The refugees first tried to disembark in Cuba but were denied permission to land. After Cuba, the captain, Gustav Schröder, went to the United States and Canada, trying to find a nation to take the Jews in, but both nations refused. He finally returned the ship to Europe, where various countries, including the United Kingdom, Belgium, the Netherlands, and France, accepted some refugees. Many were later caught in Nazi roundups of Jews in the occupied countries of Belgium, France, and the Netherlands, and some historians have estimated that approximately a quarter of them were killed in death camps during World War II. These events are known as the "Voyage of the Damned." “When the SS St. Louis was sent back, [Eleanor Roosevelt] vowed it would never happen again. So when the Quanza docked she made sure to let it be known [that the passengers] could ‘be my guests.’ She knew their lives were at stake,” said Wiesen Cook. 3. SS Quanza and Eleanor Roosevelt In August 1940, the SS Quanza, a ship bound for Mexico with over 300 passengers on board, mostly refugees fleeing Europe, arrived in New York. Nearly 200 passengers with US visas were permitted to land. When the ship arrived in Veracruz, Mexican officials denied entry to 85 of the Quanza’s passengers, claiming their paperwork was invalid. These passengers desperately began contacting friends in the United States, who in turn contacted leaders of Jewish organizations and government officials—and Eleanor Roosevelt—for help. The passengers sent a telegram to Eleanor directly, signed by the “Women Passengers,” and Eleanor likely asked the President to assist the refugees on the Quanza. A representative of Roosevelt’s President's Advisory Committee on Refugees interviewed the passengers. Based on his recommendations, the State Department allowed five children to land using the USCOM procedures, liberally interpreted the qualifications for a “non-quota” immigration visa for 41 passengers, and granted the remainder temporary transit visas. All of the passengers were permitted to disembark in Norfolk, VA.
4. Fort Ontario In June 1944, President Roosevelt announced his plan to create an emergency refugee shelter at Fort Ontario in Oswego, New York. Under this plan, 982 refugees from eighteen different countries were selected and transported from Italy to upstate New York. Roosevelt circumvented the rigid immigration quotas by identifying these refugees as his “guests,” a status that gave them no legal standing and required their return to Europe once conditions permitted their repatriation. In September 1944, Eleanor made a well-publicized visit to the camp and as she did so often to rally support for her husband's policies, wrote about her visit in “My Day.” The refugees who did not wish to return to Europe after the war were admitted to the United States in 1946. For more, see: • https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/eleanor-roosevelt• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MS_St._Louis#• https://www.timesofisrael.com/nearly-turned-back-a-ship-of-holocaust-refugees-got-help-from-eleanor-roosevelt/

ER and Race

ER and the Japanese Internment Camps

Put simply, Eleanor was vehemently opposed to her husband’s authorization of internment camps for people of Japanese ancestry. Francine Uenuma in a Time Magazine article from 2022 says in part: In the aftermath of the attack on Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941, [...] Secretary of the Navy Frank Knox attributed (without evidence) their precision in hitting military targets to a “fifth column” in Hawaii who had aided the enemy. Speculation and panic proliferated—fishermen aiding the Japanese navy, farmers poisoning vegetables, and strikes on power lines and other critical infrastructure. Amid this frenzied atmosphere, First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt appealed for calm. She traveled to California just days after the attack and made a point to meet and be photographed there with Japanese Americans—a decision that angered many. Eleanor, who decried “foolish prejudices about other races,” implored readers of her newspaper and magazine columns that those of Japanese ancestry “must not feel that they have suddenly ceased to be Americans,” and that such a crisis was the time for “really believing in the Bill of Rights and making it a reality for all loyal American citizens, regardless of race. Once the Order [ to establish internment camps] was in effect, Eleanor faced a quandary as the nation’s wartime first lady. “Unlike [her husband], she does not believe that wartime emergencies override civil liberties protections,” says Allida Black, editor emeritus of the Eleanor Roosevelt Papers Project and a distinguished visitor scholar at the University of Virginia Miller Center for Public Affairs. So what she could not contradict, she mitigated. She offered her support in myriad ways, corresponding with Japanese Americans, donating from her own funds, meeting with civic groups, helping to establish scholarships—and later, meeting with wounded Japanese American soldiers.”
SEE: https://time.com/6148899/eleanor-roosevelt-japanese-internment/

Earl Miller


 Earl Miller was the escort, companion, and confidant of Eleanor Roosevelt from 1928 until her death in 1962. A New York state trooper, Miller was assigned to the Executive Mansion in Albany in 1928 and accompanied Eleanor Roosevelt on her tours of state prisons and other institutions. He became a lifelong friend. Miller was homeless by the age of 12 and held a variety of jobs throughout his life including, stuntman, prison warden, boxer and acrobat. After FDR was elected president in 1932, he appointed Miller director of personnel for New York state's Department of Correction. In World War II, Miller served as a lieutenant commander in the Navy and became the director of physical training at the Naval Air Station in Pensacola, Florida. Miller was completely devoted to Eleanor. Handsome and athletic, he gave her riding lessons (and later bought her a chestnut mare named Dot), coached her in tennis and swimming, taught her to shoot a pistol, and generally built her confidence. Eleanor came to rely on Miller, perhaps even held romantic feelings for him. Her son James described the relationship as possibly "the one real romance in mother's life outside of marriage." She always kept a room for him wherever she lived. Numerous framed photos of Miller decorated the rooms of Val-Kill and Eleanor's New York City apartment. Miller was married three times and had two children—Eleanor and Earl Jr. He died on May 2, 1973 in Hollywood, Florida.(c) https://www.nps.gov/people/earl-miller.htm
“[Earl was the] one real romance [with a man] in mother's life outside of her marriage. [He] encouraged her to take pride in herself, to be herself, to be unafraid of facing the world. He did a lot for her. She seemed to draw strength from him when he was by her side, and she came to rely on him ... He became part of the family, too, and gave her a great deal of what her husband and we, her sons, failed to give her. Above all, he made her feel that she was a woman.” James Roosevelt (son)

Lorena Hickok

Lorena Hickok, or "Hick" was born on March 7, 1893 in East Troy, Wisconsin. In 1913 she began her career in journalism as a reporter for the Associated Press. Hickok has been described as looking like one of the boys, wearing men's shirt, smoking cigars, and playing poker with the other AP reporters. In 1932 she did a series of interviews with Eleanor Roosevelt. Through these meetings the two grew to be friends. It is said that Hickok helped Eleanor Roosevelt become even more assertive than she already was. Hickok helped the First Lady "get her wings." It was Hickok who suggested to Eleanor the idea that would become the column My Day. Hickok's close relationship with the First Lady compromised her position as a Washington news reporter, and she resigned from the AP in 1933. From 1933 to 1936 she wrote field reports for Harry Hopkins and the Federal Emergency Relief Agency. In 1936 she moved to Long Island to work for a public relations firm. In 1940 Hickok returned to Washington and the First Lady; she took up residence in the White House and began working for the Democratic National Committee as executive secretary to the Woman's Division. In 1945, poor health forced her to resign from political life. She moved into a cottage in Hyde Park and wrote many books on the lives of Eleanor and Franklin Roosevelt. Hickok died in 1968. ________________________________________Sources: Goodwin, Doris Kearns. No Ordinary Time: Franklin and Eleanor The Home Front in World War II. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1994. Letters Between Eleanor Roosevelt & Lorena Hickok Eleanor Roosevelt (ER) and Lorena Hickok began their decades-long relationship in 1933, before FDR's inauguration. Lorena, or Hick (as ER called her) was a highly successful reporter, and ER was about to become First Lady. They shared an emotional and romantic relationship that peaked in passion and later developed into a friendship that endured until death. When their relationship began, ER was not a naive, inexperienced woman. Biographer Blanche Wiesen Cook states that after 1920, many of her closest friends were lesbians, and that she both honored their relationships and preserved their privacy. ER's letters (and she wrote ten to fifteen page letters daily to Hick for a time) indicate a romantic attachment that was physical. She knew what kind of attachment this was, and the secrecy its nature demanded. As a result, finding evidence is difficult--but not at impossible. The relationship these two women shared has been--not surprisingly--heavily censored over the years. While they lived, photographs of family dinners were cropped to remove Hick's image. If she was included in a photograph, she was not identified. And she was certainly not talked about, even to biographers. After ER's death, Hick herself edited and retyped much of their correspondence. She burned some of ER's letters and many of her own. After Hick's death, her sister Ruby read the original versions of their first year of correspondence and then threw them in the fireplace, saying, "This is nobody's business." Even Doris Faber, author of The Life of Lorena Hickok: ER's Friend was horrified by the correspondence. She tried to get the letters sealed from the public until after the year 2000, and when she couldn't do that, she decided to ignore content that reflected on the relationship. About one particularly romantic passage, she declares that there can be little doubt that "it could not mean what it appears to mean." The collection Empty Without You: The Intimate Letters of Eleanor Roosevelt and Lorena Hickok, published in 1998, gave the public a new glimpse into the life of one of America's most beloved First Ladies. SAMPLE: March 5, 1933 [ER to Hick, written on the first evening after FDR's inauguration.] Hick my dearest-- I cannot go to bed tonight without a word to you. I felt a little as though a part of me was leaving tonight. You have grown so much to be a part of my life that it is empty without you, even though I'm busy every minute. [details of day deleted] Oh! darling. I hope on the whole you will be happier for my friendship. I felt I had brought you so much discomfort and hardship today & almost more heartache than you could bear & I don't want to make you unhappy--All my love I shall be saying to you over thought waves in a few minutes. Good night my dear one Angels guard thee God protect thee My love enfold thee All the night throughAlways yours,ER
SAMPLE: March 7, 1933 ER to Hick... Hick darling, All day I've thought of you & another birthday I will be with you, & yet tonite you sounded so far away & formal. Oh! I want to put my arms around you. I ache to hold you close. Your ring is a great comfort to me. I look at it and think she does love me, or I wouldn't be wearing it.
SAMPLE: ER to Hick [Date not provided]I wish I could lie down beside you tonight & take you in my arms.
SAMPLE: [Hick writing to ER [Date not provided]Only eight more days . . . Funny how even the dearest face will fade away in time. Most clearly I remember your eyes, with a kind of teasing smile in them, and the feeling of that soft spot just north-east of the corner of your mouth against my lips. . . .