Question

How did Eleanor Roosevelt change the role of the First Lady during Franklin D. Roosevelt’s time in office?

Answer 1

Hint: Eleanor Roosevelt was born in New York City to an affluent family. She was painfully shy as a kid. Her parents died when she was ten years old. She said the best three years of her life were spent at a girls' boarding school near London, where she graduated when she was 18.

Complete answer:
Franklin D. Roosevelt -
Franklin D. Roosevelt, also known as FDR, was the 32nd president of the United States from 1933 to 1945. Roosevelt was the first president to be elected four times, and he guided the United States through two of the twentieth century's biggest crises: the Great Depression and World War II. In doing so, he massively extended the federal government's powers through the New Deal, a series of initiatives and reforms, and he was a key architect of the popular attempt to rid the world of German National Socialism and Japanese militarism.

Eleanor Roosevelt changes the role of the First Lady –
Anna Eleanor Roosevelt was a political figure, diplomat, and activist in the United States. She was the longest-serving First Lady of the United States, serving from March 4, 1933, to April 12, 1945, during her husband President Franklin D. Roosevelt's four terms in office.

Eleanor's position in the first lady was more transparent. For the majority of American history, most first ladies did very little. Eleanor Roosevelt influenced many other first ladies, including Nancy Reagan, Hillary Clinton, and Michelle Obama, who played a more public role. She had a major impact on a number of social services and laws. She basically said that first ladies don't have to be quiet all of the time. They have the ability to adjust things as well.

Eleanor Roosevelt transformed the role of First Lady from a purely symbolic position to one that included political participation.

The chairing of the United Nations Human Rights Commission is one of Eleanor Roosevelt's most enduring political achievements. She was a driving force behind the creation of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights by that commission.

Eleanor Roosevelt was also involved in Democratic Party politics and numerous social reform organizations.


Note: Following President Franklin D. Roosevelt's death in 1945, President Harry S. Truman named Eleanor as a delegate to the United Nations (UN), where she chaired the Commission on Human Rights from 1946 to 1951 and was instrumental in the drafting and adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948). She remained involved throughout the Democratic Party in the last decade of her life, campaigning for the election of Democratic presidential candidate Adlai Stevenson in 1952 and 1956.

Bess Truman and Mamie Eisenhower, her two immediate predecessors, refused to use their positions for political activism. Other First Ladies (notably Nancy Reagan, Hillary Clinton, and Michelle Obama, as well as Jackie Kennedy and Betty Ford to a lesser extent) embraced the role of First Lady activist with zeal.