Eleanor Roosevelt was 34 when she found them — a bundle of love letters hidden in Franklin’s suitcase. In 1918, he was recovering from pneumonia, and she was simply unpacking his things when she learned the truth: her husband was having an affair with Lucy Mercer, a social secretary whom Eleanor herself had hired and trusted.
The betrayal was complete. She offered him a divorce. His mother threatened to cut off financial support. His political advisers warned it would destroy his career. So they stayed married, and Eleanor Roosevelt — a woman who had spent her whole life desperately trying to be satisfied with herself — stopped trying.

But to understand how unusual this transformation was, you need to know who Eleanor Roosevelt had been before that day.
She was born Anna Eleanor Roosevelt on October 11, 1884, into a wealthy and privileged family.

Her mother, Anna Hall Roosevelt, was a legendary New York beauty who openly called her daughter “Granny” because the child was too serious and not pretty. Her mother made remarks about Eleanor’s appearance that would have destroyed any child’s self-esteem.

Her father, Elliott Roosevelt, was an alcoholic, consumed by the illness. Eleanor adored him — he was the only person who made her feel loved — but his addiction made him unreliable: distracted, committed to a psychiatric hospital. When Eleanor was eight, her mother died. When she was nine, her beloved father died. By ten, she was an orphan, raised by a cold, strict grandmother.
She grew up believing she was unlovable. Painfully shy and insecure, she was afraid of disappointing everyone.

At 19, she married Franklin Delano Roosevelt — handsome, charming, a man who wanted her. She tried desperately to be perfect. In ten years she bore six children. She managed his political career. She hosted events despite being consumed by the household.
She did everything society demanded.
And then she discovered it still wasn’t enough to be the ideal wife…

But if she couldn’t earn love by being perfect, she might as well be herself and do work that mattered to her.

In 1921, at 39, Franklin fell ill with polio. Suddenly he was paralyzed, and the rising political star faced death. His mother wanted him to retire and live in Hyde Park as an invalid. But Eleanor found the strength and refused to let him withdraw.
She became his anchor. She attended meetings he couldn’t reach. She gave speeches when he couldn’t travel. She became his link to the world.
And she discovered she was extraordinarily good at it.

When Franklin became president in 1933, Eleanor rejected the traditional First Lady role of tea receptions and smiling for cameras.
She held weekly press conferences, but only for women reporters, forcing news organizations to hire women if they wanted access to the White House. Dozens of women built journalism careers thanks to Eleanor’s strategic feminism.
She wrote the newspaper column “My Day” six days a week for 27 years. She earned her own money, controlled her finances, and ran her own business independent of Franklin.
She traveled tirelessly across Depression-era America. She went down into coal mines. She visited migrant camps. She met labor organizers and civil-rights activists. Franklin called her “my eyes and ears.” His advisers called her “a nuisance,” but she didn’t care…
The Secret Service hated that she kept showing up where they thought it was dangerous — Black neighborhoods, labor strikes, pockets of poverty. She believed her work mattered more than her safety.

Then came 1939. Marian Anderson, one of the world’s greatest opera singers, was denied the right to perform at Constitution Hall in Washington, D.C., because she was Black. The Daughters of the American Revolution maintained a policy that only white performers could appear.
Eleanor Roosevelt was a member of the DAR. She could have stayed silent. Instead, she publicly resigned, writing a letter that made headlines nationwide: “I am in complete disagreement…”
Then she set out to arrange something unprecedented: a free concert on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial.
On April 9, 1939, 75,000 people gathered to hear Marian Anderson sing. It became one of the most powerful pre–civil rights movement moments, because Eleanor Roosevelt used her privilege to pursue justice.

Death threats arrived immediately. The FBI opened a file on her. Conservative newspapers called her a communist. Segregationists in the South despised her. But she kept doing her work…
She advocated for anti-lynching legislation. She supported labor unions. She fought for women’s rights and racial equality — positions that made her both the most admired and the most hated woman in America.

When Franklin died in 1945, everyone assumed she would retire. She was 60. She had been First Lady for twelve years.
Instead, she began the most important work of her life.
President Truman appointed her to the United Nations. In 1946, she became chair of the UN Commission on Human Rights, tasked with drafting the Universal Declaration of Human Rights…
For two years she negotiated, persuaded, compromised, fought — eighteen hours a day. She learned international diplomacy. She refused to give up.
On December 10, 1948, the UN General Assembly adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Eleanor helped it overcome every obstacle.
The Declaration became a foundation of international human-rights law. It was translated into more than 500 languages. It inspired justice movements worldwide.

Eleanor Roosevelt — the girl people said was ugly and worthless, the wife betrayed by her husband, the woman who believed she wasn’t enough — helped create a document defining human dignity for the entire world.
She worked until her death in 1962, at 78…
President Truman called her “the First Lady of the World.” President Kennedy called her one of the greatest women in American history…