Eleanor Roosevelt: One of the Most Admired Persons of the 20th Century - Essay Example

As first lady from 1933 to 1945, Eleanor Roosevelt was a famous supporter of her husband’s New Deal policies through the Great Depression and continued to support the ideas and innovations even after he died in 1945.  She was a strong advocate for civil rights before it was a popular approach and struggled to improve the conditions of working women. On an international scale, she helped to form Freedom House, an organization dedicated to the research and study of democracy around the world. She was also an early supporter of the United Nations, including forming a national association in America to help support the effort. As a result of her efforts, Roosevelt was appointed as a delegate to the UN General Assembly from 1945 to 1952 by then-President Harry S. Truman, a position that was confirmed by the US Senate. As a delegate, she introduced and won approval for the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. In her later years, Roosevelt helped start the second-wave feminism as chairman of President Kennedy’s Commission on the Status of Women. All of these things contributed to her reputation as one of the most admired women of the 20th century. This will include an examination of some of her more important activities, such as those mentioned above. It may not be evident from a glimpse of her life activities and works, but Anna Eleanor Roosevelt was raised in a very traditionally Victorian household in which women were held to a rigid standard of behavior and education.

She was born on October 11, 1884, as the oldest child of very wealthy socialite parents. “Her parents lived in style and comfort on their ample inheritances. They owned a townhouse staffed with servants on a fashionable Manhattan street.  Anna had her horse and carriage.  She ordered her dresses from London and Paris.  Elliott had four fine polo ponies stabled at his Long Island country club.”