Anna Eleanor Roosevelt (IPAEng: ˈɛlɪnɔr ˈroʊzəvɛlt; October 11, 1884–November 7, 1962) was the First Lady of the United States from 1933 to 1945. She supported the New Deal policies of her husband, President Franklin D. Roosevelt, and assumed a role as an advocate for civil rights. After her husband's death in 1945, Roosevelt continued to be an internationally prominent author, speaker, politician, and activist for the New Deal coalition. She worked to enhance the status of working women, although she opposed the Equal Rights Amendment because she believed it would adversely affect women.

In the 1940s, Roosevelt was one of the co-founders of Freedom House and supported the formation of the United Nations. Roosevelt founded the UN Association of the United States in 1943 to advance support for the formation of the UN. She was a delegate to the UN General Assembly from 1945 and 1952, a job for which she was appointed by President Harry S. Truman and confirmed by the United States Senate. During her time at the United Nations she chaired the committee that drafted and approved the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. President Truman called her the "First Lady of the World" in tribute to her human rights achievements.

Active in politics for the rest of her life, Roosevelt chaired the John F. Kennedy administration's ground-breaking committee which helped start second-wave feminism, the Presidential Commission on the Status of Women. She was one of the most admired people of the 20th century, according to Gallup's List of Widely Admired People.

Early life

Anna Eleanor Roosevelt was born on October 11, 1884 at 56 West 37th Street in New York City, New York , the daughter of Elliott Roosevelt, and Anna Hall Roosevelt. She was named Anna after her mother and her aunt Anna Cowles; Eleanor after her father, who was nicknamed "Ellie". From the beginning, Roosevelt preferred to be called by her middle name.

Two brothers, Elliott Roosevelt, Jr. (1889–1893) and Hall Roosevelt (1891–1941) were born later. She also had a half brother, Elliott Roosevelt Mann, the result of an extramarital affair between Elliot and Katy Mann, a young servant girl employed by the family.

Roosevelt was born into a world of immense wealth and privilege, as her family was part of New York high society called the "swells". , pp. 48, 56, 57, 74, 81, 89-91, 108-110, 111-113, 145, 152-155, 160, 162-163, 174-175, 179, 193-196, 198, 220-221, 225-227, 244-245, 259, 273-274, 275, 276, 297, 293-294, 302-303

Roosevelt was so sober a girl that her mother nicknamed her "Granny". Her mother died from diphtheria when Roosevelt was eight and her father, an alcoholic confined to a sanitarium, died less than two years later. Her brother Elliot Jr. died from diphtheria just like her mother. Thus, she was raised from early adolescence by her maternal grandmother, Mary Ludlow Hall (1843–1919) at Tivoli, New York. In his Pulitzer Prize-winning biography of Eleanor Roosevelt, author Joseph Lash describes her during this period of childhood as insecure and starved for affection, considering herself "ugly". Nevertheless, even at 14, Roosevelt understood that one's prospects in life were not totally dependent on physical beauty writing wistfully, "...no matter how plain a woman may be if truth and loyalty are stamped upon her face all will be attracted to her...."