Eleanor (Anna) Roosevelt, b. 12 Oct 1884, New York, New York, USA d. 7 Nov 1962, New York, New York, USA (Age 78 years)
Marriage
17 Mar 1905
New York, New York, USA
1903 engaged
President Theodore Roosevelt gave away the bride at the wedding
Their relationship was damaged further by Franklin's affair with social secretary, Lucy Mercer -- Eleanor found their love letters in 1918 while unpacking Franklin's suitcase. She then presented her husband with a choice between a divorce and the termination of his affair. Heeding the reprimands of his mother and aware of the problems divorce would pose for a political career, Franklin ended the liaison. The result was that he and Eleanor's relationship became more of a partnership than anything else. They were "linked by indissoluble bonds but not lost in each other as husband and wife might sometimes be."
1896-1900 Attended Groton School in Massachusetts.
1904 Attended Harvard University, graduating in 1903.
1904-1907 Attended Columbia University Law School.
1907 Admitted to the bar to practice law.
1911-12 Senator in the state legislature of New York.
1913-20 Assistant Secretary of the Navy under President Wilson.
1920 Ran unsuccessfully as the Democratic nominee for Vice President.
1921 Crippled by an attack of polio.
1929-32 Governor of New York.
1933-45 Thirty-second President of the United States.
Soundly defeated Herbert Hoover in the 1932 election by a popular vote of 22,809,638 to 15,758,901 and an electoral vote of 472 to 59.
Was reelected in 1936 over Alfred Landon by votes of 27,752,869 to 16,674,665 and 523 to 8,
again in 1940 over Wendell L. Willkie by votes of 27,307,819 to 22,321,018 and 449 to 82, and yet
again in 1944 over Thomas E. Dewey by votes of 25,606,585 to 22,014,745 and 432 to 99; the only president elected 4 times.
Since age 39 his legs were paralyzed. Garner, Wallace, and Truman were his vice-presidents.
Assuming the Presidency at the depth of the Great Depression, Franklin D. Roosevelt helped the American people
regain faith in themselves. He brought hope as he promised prompt, vigorous action, and asserted in his Inaugural Address, "the only thing we have to fear is fear itself." Born in 1882 at Hyde Park, New York--now a national historic site--he attended Harvard University and Columbia Law School. On St. Patrick's Day, 1905, he married Eleanor Roosevelt. Following the example of his fifth cousin, President Theodore Roosevelt, whom he greatly admired, Franklin D. Roosevelt entered public service through politics, but as a Democrat. He won election to the New York Senate in 1910. President Wilson appointed him Assistant Secretary of the Navy, and he was the Democratic nominee for Vice President in 1920. In the summer of 1921, when he was 39, disaster hit-he was stricken with poliomyelitis. Demonstrating indomitable courage, he fought to regain the use of his legs, particularly through swimming. At the 1924 Democratic Convention he dramatically appeared on crutches to nominate Alfred E. Smith as "the Happy Warrior." In 1928 Roosevelt became Governor of New York. He was elected President in November 1932, to the first of four terms. By March there were 13,000,000 unemployed, and almost every bank was closed. In his first "hundred days," he proposed, and Congress enacted, a sweeping program to bring recovery to business and agriculture, relief to the unemployed and to those in danger of losing farms and homes, and reform, especially through the establishment of the Tennessee Valley Authority. By 1935 the Nation had achieved some measure of recovery, but businessmen and bankers were turning more and more against Roosevelt's New Deal program. They feared his experiments, were appalled because he had taken the Nation off the gold standard and allowed deficits in the budget, and disliked the concessions to labor. Roosevelt responded with a new program of
reform: Social Security, heavier taxes on the wealthy, new controls over banks and public utilities, and an enormous work relief program for the unemployed. In 1936 he was re-elected by a top-heavy margin. Feeling he was armed with a popular mandate, he sought legislation to enlarge the Supreme Court, which had been invalidating key New Deal measures. Roosevelt lost the Supreme Court battle, but a revolution in constitutional law took place. Thereafter the Government could legally regulate the economy. Roosevelt had pledged the United States to the "good neighbor" policy, transforming the Monroe Doctrine from a unilateral American manifesto into arrangements for mutual action against aggressors. He also sought through neutrality legislation to keep the United States out of the war in Europe, yet at the same time to strengthen nations threatened or attacked. When France fell and England came under siege in 1940, he began to send Great Britain all possible aid short of actual military involvement. When the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, Roosevelt directed organization of the Nation's manpower and resources for global war. Feeling that the future peace of the world would depend upon relations between the United States and Russia, he devoted much thought to the planning of a United Nations, in which, he hoped, international difficulties could be settled. As the war drew to a close, Roosevelt's health deteriorated, and on April 12, 1945, while at Warm Springs, Georgia, he died of a cerebral hemorrhage.
1882 - 1945 (63 years)
1884 - 1962 (78 years)
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