Term Paper
on Eleanor Roosevelt
J. William T. Youngs’ book titled Eleanor
Roosevelt: A Personal and Public Life, is a biography of Eleanor Roosevelt
(1884-1962), the wife of the President of the United States Mr. Franklin D.
Roosevelt. The author, a professor of History at Eastern Washington University,
in the biography, traces the different stages of Eleanor Roosevelt’s life that
is from her early childhood, losing both her mother and father, through her
adulthood as a wife and mother, her role as the wife of an emerging political
figure and her status as wartime first Lady of the Nation. An essay statement
that identifies the author’s thesis of the biography is that despite of being
the most influential women of the of the twentieth century she possessed the
extraordinary ability to “walk with the kings and keep the common touch.” Youngs
calls her “virtually an American saint” The book tells us that even famous
people can have a basically normal life. It shows everyone that Eleanor
Roosevelt was not an average New York socialite.
The second edition of the book is updated and slightly lengthy than the first
edition of 1985 but the fundamental design of the book is the same as it was of
the first edition. The amended sections contains Roosevelt's relationship with
Lorena Hickok, her stance on the Equal Rights Amendment, her contributions to
civil rights, her wartime activities, and her postwar liberalism. (Preface) The
author has mostly depended on Eleanor Roosevelt’s own writing to illustrate her
life.
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Of course, many books written about the life and works of the First Lady,
Eleanor Roosevelt herself and about both she and her husband, President Franklin
D. Roosevelt give more detailed coverage than Youngs’ single volume does. But
this book is adequate for someone looking for an introduction to one of the
twentieth century’s most influential women. This book is packed with little
known facts about Eleanor Roosevelt and her family and nothing is missing from
it. It also contains some helpful pictures between parts.
During the Great Depression of the 1930’s when
the economic woes of the common people had multiplied she sponsored an
experiment at Arthurdale, West Virginia, designed to bring small-scale
manufacturing to impoverished coal miners in a self-sustaining community. She
also put her weight behind the National Youth Administration, a program for
youth employment, and of the leftist-dominated American Youth Congress to
curtail the widespread unemployment, particularly among the youth.
She was a symbol of equal rights and as a U.S. delegate to the United Nations
from 1945 to 1953, she chaired the commission that drafted the Universal
Declaration of Human Rights. She was more liberal than her husband and she
worked to promote racial equality. In a famous incident she resigned from the
Daughters of the American Revolution when the black singer Marian Anderson was
denied the use of their facilities. During World War II (1939-1945) she was a
globetrotting visiting American soldiers around the world, championing
desegregation of the armed forces, and at the end of the war urging admitting to
Palestine the Jewish refugees from Europe. Following the death of her husband in
1945, Roosevelt founded Americans for Democratic Action, a liberal group within
the Democratic Party. Her life was rich in the bonds of love and friendship and
she was sensitive to the distances between one human being and another.
Her earlier childhood was tumultuous. Being born in New York City on October 11,
1884, to Elliott Roosevelt and Anna Hall Roosevelt, descendants of a prominent
family of Dutch ancestry. She lost her mother when she was eight. Her father
died when she was ten. She then lived under the guardianship of her maternal
grandmother. At the age of 15 was sent to a boarding school in England. She
started social work in New York after her return from the boarding school. At
the age of 21 she married her distant cousin Franklin Roosevelt in 1905. They
had six children, one of whom died in infancy. Franklin's mother, Sara, was the
dominant figure of the house as a traditional mother-in-law for Eleanor
Roosevelt.
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Eleanor Roosevelt’s matrimonial life came under
tremendous stress in 1918 when she discovered Franklin’s affair with her social
secretary, Lucy Page Mercer. This was a turning point in the marriage of the
couple. Although the two reconciled with each other but this affair forced her
to have a career of her own. She became involved in the League of Women Voters
and the Women's Trade Union League. She entered into politics in 1921 to work
politically on behalf of her husband, who had been stricken with poliomyelitis
after his unsuccessful bid for the vice presidency in 1920. She became active in
Democratic Party politics as a means of keeping her handicapped husband's
political career alive. When he was elected to the presidency in 1932, Eleanor
continued to assist him, and although she held no office, she soon became an
influential figure in his administration.
Eleanor Roosevelt was a continuing struggle against discrimination, despair and
unequal human rights. She was one with a mission and her goal was to help women,
blacks and to fight against child labor. She was a social activist and crusader
and a truly sensational women. She was a lecturer and an author. Her writing
includes numerous books, including It's Up to the Women (1933) and This I
Remember (1949) and “My Day,” a widely read newspaper column.
References
Youngs, J. William T., Eleanor Roosevelt: A Personal and Public Life, 2/E,
Longman, 1999.
