Eleanor
Roosevelt was the niece of President Theodore Roosevelt and the wife of President
Franklin Delano Roosevelt, but she made a name for herself, becoming one of the
most admired people of the 20th century. Although she came from a life of privilege,
she had a difficult childhood -- she was made to feel like an "ugly duckling,"
and was orphaned by the time she was ten. She married her distant cousin, Franklin
D. Roosevelt, but his promising political career was jeopardized when he was stricken
with polio and was paralyzed from the waist down. When he became president in
1933, Mrs. Roosevelt took an active role as First Lady, traveling across the nation
and around the world to gather information and promote her husband's policies.
Eleanor
Roosevelt was involved in the formation of the United Nations, and after her husband
died in 1945, President Harry Truman appointed her to the US Delegation to the
UN. She chaired the committee that drafted the Universal Declaration of Human
Rights. President John F. Kennedy again appointed her to the US Delegation to
the UN as well as calling on her to be an advisor for the newly created Peace
Corps and to chair the President's Commission on the Status of Women. Eleanor
Roosevelt's dedication to human rights, equality, tolerance and world peace earned
her many awards and honors, as well as recognition as "The First Lady of the World."
