 Hello, from the National Archives Public Programs and Education staff. My name is Sarah Lyons Davis, and I'm an education specialist at the National Archives. Welcome to the National Archives Comes Alive Young Learners Program. Today, we meet Eleanor Roosevelt, humanitarian, civil rights advocate, and the longest-serving First Lady of the United States. Eleanor Roosevelt also made history as a co-creator and delegate to the United Nations. Her work and influence on our nation serves as an extraordinary role model for all Americans. Eleanor Roosevelt is portrayed by Renee Goodwin of the American Historical Theater. The National Archives has many records related to Eleanor Roosevelt. On this slide, for our education-specific resource Docs Teach, you can see an educational activity for Eleanor Roosevelt when she was First Lady. She was married to President Franklin Delano Roosevelt during his Four Terms as President from 1933 to 1945. As First Lady, she traveled the nation and wrote about her travels and adventures in her daily column called My Day. In this 1939 column, she writes about resigning from the Daughters of the American Revolution. In January 1939, the Daughters of the American Revolution denied Howard University's petition to use Constitution Hall for performance by Marian Anderson. On February 26, 1939, First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt submitted her letter of resignation to the DAR President, declaring that the DAR had an opportunity to lead in an enlightened way but had failed to do so. The following day, Mrs. Roosevelt addressed the issue in her My Day column published in newspapers across the country. Without mentioning the DAR or Anderson by name, Eleanor couched her decision in terms everyone could understand, whether one should resign from an organization you disagree with or remain and try to change it from within. Mrs. Roosevelt told her readers that in this situation, to remain as a member implies approval of that action, therefore I am resigning. On April 9, Marian Anderson performed at the Lincoln Memorial. The Easter Sunday event was attended by tens of thousands of fans, and the radio broadcast allowed for millions more to celebrate Anderson's talent and performance. The concert was seen as an early victory in the battle for civil rights. This column and others like it can be found in the Anna Eleanor Roosevelt papers at the Franklin D. Roosevelt Library in Hyde Park, New York. The National Archives has a number of records of Mrs. Roosevelt's dedication and contributions to the United States. Here is a photo of her meeting with Girl Scouts in Lexington, Kentucky in 1934 and meeting with a soldier wounded during World War II in 1943. With her many contributions as First Lady, Eleanor Roosevelt considered her role in creating the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights for greatest achievement. After she left the White House, she focused her energy on work for the United Nations and on President Kennedy's commission on the status of women. In this 1949 photograph taken at the temporary home of the United Nations in Lake Success, New York, you can see her holding the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. And here is a photo of her meeting with President Kennedy in 1962 in support of the President's commission on the status of women in the Oval Office at the White House. She established the President's commission on the status of women through executive order in December 1961. Our programs are brought to you from the National Archives Public Programs and Education Team and the National Archives Foundation. You can find information for free teacher and student programs on the National Archives website, archives.gov, under Archives News, upcoming events, and if you follow the National Archives on social media. So now, let's give a warm welcome to Eleanor Roosevelt. Well, I thank you so much for your kindness and your generous words. I'm so delighted to see that you could come and visit with me today. I always like meeting new people and getting to know about them and letting them know about some of the things that I've experienced. Sometimes I get asked a number of questions and some of the questions are often repeated by other people many times. For example, one of the questions I'm frequently asked, particularly by the younger set, is, did you like school? Well, I know that can sometimes be a controversial subject, but for me, it was not so difficult to answer. You see, after my mother passed away, I had education mostly by tutoring, and I didn't go to formal school until I was living with my grandmother, and I was age 15. And then I was sent off to the Allenswood School for Girls, particularly since my aunt requested that I do that and thought it would be very good for me. And she was so correct. It was a wonderful experience. The headmistress was a woman by the name of Mademoiselle Marie Syvestri. She was quite remarkable. She knew almost everything, and she enjoyed everything. I am fortunate to say that I soon became one of her favorites, and that gave me great privilege to travel with her when she went on various trips. It was interesting in a number of ways, one because I would learn things about places I had only read of, and also because she would take me to places that were not always the kind of places the tourists would go. You see, she wanted me not just to learn about the places, but about the people, about the culture, and see the good things, the way they were living, the gifts they had like many of us have enjoyed, but also to see the challenges. My three years at Allenswood was perhaps the most wonderful time of my life. I was quite sad to see it end. I had made so many wonderful friends that most of whom I kept for the rest of my life. When I finished Allenswood, I returned to New York and had a wonderful coming out party. My grandmother gave me a glorious party at the Waldorf Astoria, lots of pomp and circumstance as they say, but it really wasn't the kind of thing I enjoyed tremendously. So I fulfilled my social obligations, of course, but I decided I wanted to do something more, and so I became a member of the Junior League, and I started to learn that there were things that I could do to make an impact, to make a real effect on the lives of people. One of those things was to teach dancing at the Rimmington Street Settlement House. Oh my, how I enjoyed that, since I've always loved to dance. It was a long about that time that I became reacquainted with someone that I had met quite some time before. His name was Franklin, Franklin Delano Roosevelt. We spent a great deal of time together, and we soon became great friends. But I think I also began to realize that I was becoming quite fond of Franklin. We had a lot of things in common, and I realized that we cared about similar things, the great deal, about opportunities for people, how to improve their lot, the quality of their life, since we were so blessed and had so much. The relationship continued to grow, and eventually he proposed, and we were to be married. I was so surprised. I never thought that he would choose me to marry me. I was very excited. And again, there was a lovely wedding party in New York at my aunt's house. It was a small private reception, but quite lovely, you see. Now it happened to be on St. Patrick's Day, and it was the day of the St. Patrick's Day Parade, where my uncle, the president, was there to give me away. I was pleased that it was on St. Patrick's Day. It added a certain excitement to it. But what did happen was just at that very tender moment when Franklin and I were to exchange our wedding bows, they went marching by the window beneath us, a great large group of men from the Hibernians singing a grand old Irish song with great gusto. Why, I don't think we hurt each other, so no one else in the room hurt us. And then right after the ceremony, Franklin and I were prepared to receive the good wishes from all of our guests. However, Franklin, or rather Uncle Ted, who had had a very busy day, decided he wanted to go and have some refreshments. And when he went into the area where the refreshments were being served, every single guest at the wedding followed him, and we just stood there utterly alone. But nevertheless, it was a wonderful day, and I was so much in love with him. For our honeymoon, we waited until he finished school, and then we traveled extensively that summer throughout Europe. It was a very interesting and educated honeymoon. I enjoyed it a great deal. When we came back, it became soon very clear to me that Franklin had great desire to be in public life, to be a politician. I was not exactly excited about that prospect, but I knew Franklin was very serious and very committed about doing some very good work in this country. So absolutely, I supported him to the best of my ability. When he was elected as the New York State Senator, it really was my full introduction to many people who were working in various phases of politics. I was rather naive at the time, but I did my best to learn. Now one of the requirements is to do proper socializing with certain people. I remember on one particular day, we had invited a number of this group of politicians, let's call them, and they were invited to our house for lunch. Well, it was a big deal for me, particularly since I realized too late that it was Cook's Day off. What could I do? I certainly couldn't be rude and turn them away, so I did the only thing I could do. I took them into the dining room, I got out our chafing dish, and I made them scrambled eggs. Well, they seemed to like it and the day wasn't a failure. It actually went very well. When Franklin was about to run for a second term, he became very ill with typhoid fever. I needed so much grooming to be the wife of a politician, and Franklin discovered this little hot man was what I called him, Louis Howe. Louis became just so important to us. He supported both of us. He of course adored Franklin, believed in him, heart and soul, but I also needed educating in how to make presentations, how to speak so that my voice wasn't so dreadfully high that it would be irritating. Hard to imagine that's what it was, but it was. But Louis stood by us all the way and supported Franklin, and he was elected again, and then he was appointed as Assistant Secretary of the Navy, a position he valued very greatly. Time was moving on, and I could see that Franklin's goals and Franklin's desire and energy wanted much more than where he was, and so he ran for the seat of governorship of the state of New York. It was about then that he became very, very ill with polio. We did as much as we could to conceal his condition, and Louis was very instrumental in that. I remember one of the things we had to do was to build an elevator in the House at Hyde Park, and on the elevator, Franklin would help himself get into the chair, and using ropes, he would pull himself up to the second floor. In spite of all that, he did very well, and people seemed to love him a great deal. Meanwhile, while Franklin was ill, I continued to work and learn more, and I traveled around to many locales to take the temperature of the people, what was that they felt was needed for them, education and housing and jobs. After all, times were not as easy as they were for us, for many people. They were struggling a great deal. Franklin was very sensitive to that, and he wanted to help them a great deal. I soon realized that Franklin had even bigger goals in mind. He did run for the position of vice president, but the campaign was lost to another party, so he never did get to be vice president. But that was just as well, because he used some of that time while still recovering from polio to create a facility for others who had conditions like his own. It was in Georgia, in Warm Springs, Georgia, and he devoted a great deal of his time there to give opportunities for people so that they could learn how to use their body and their mind as well. All along, he was grooming himself for higher destiny, which I still was not certain how I felt about it, but as long as it was important to Franklin, I thought we should do that. I thought school was very important, and for a time I actually taught school. I enjoyed that very much, but it got to a point where it was too much for me to do and somehow not appropriate while Franklin was climbing the political ladder. He began building a cadre of friends and politicians who began to see Franklin's political potential. Meanwhile, I didn't mention that I had five children to raise, and that was quite a chore as well. Of course, my mother-in-law was very much a help most of the time. Sometimes she would be a little overbearing, but very kind, always kind, always very generous, and we were always grateful to her for everything that she did for us. She wanted Franklin to succeed. She saw that he struggled with his physical condition, and there were times when he would meet with others, and one of my sons would help him stand up. He never wanted to look like he was a weakling. He always wanted to put his best foot forward, and he always managed to do that with the help of his own perseverance and the help of God and the help of his family, particularly his mother and of Louis Howe. So we were moving along quite well, and I think he finally got to the point where he realized he had to set his sights on being the President of the United States. I was very concerned about that. It's a very difficult job. It's a difficult job for someone with good health, let alone someone like Franklin who had many medical conditions. But he managed to continue to build relationships with people from not only this country, but he began to build relationships with people from around the world. I think that began after World War I started. I think he saw that there were going to be international problems for him to deal with. And one of the things we talked about was should women run for office? Well, there were very much opposing opinions on that, but I thought that women could run for office. I thought they could do very well. You see, men have a set of particular talents, and women also have particular talents. I mean, men are strong and determined and oftentimes have very analytical minds, but women are also strong in their own right. And they have characteristics. I mean, after all, they are compassionate. They bring us into the future by giving birth to children and raising them. And they're very adaptable to different situations. After all, they've adapted to men that is not always an easy task. So I think that it is important that women also run for office. And I don't know what your thoughts are. Why don't you share some of your thoughts with me so we can answer your questions? Do you have any questions for me? Thank you so much, Mrs. Roosevelt. It was so interesting to hear what you shared with us. If you have a few extra moments, I do have a question for you. Of course I do. So you mentioned the instance of having company over and making eggs. Is that your favorite recipe or do you have others? Well, it's sort of become my favorite recipe for quite a while, mainly because I never really learned how to cook. It was much later in life that as we were doing more socializing and even though we had help, that I finally learned how to prepare some other things. And I think that was good. But I guess I will always think of scrambled eggs as my first venture into cooking. That's great. And so you mentioned about different contributions you made and your husband made towards the country. How do you think all Americans can make a contribution to their country? First of all, I think that's an excellent question. And I think it's imperative that all Americans make a contribution. It can be done so in many ways. It doesn't necessarily have to be grandiose, although if you choose to run for office, I support you and I applaud you if you decide to go into higher education so that others can learn things. I also applaud you because good teachers are the backbone of this country. But there are other ways, simple ways, helping a neighbor, helping a friend, helping your own family, learning as much as you can about the other cultures and other ethnic groups that may live in your city or your town. Understanding is critical to getting the best out of life for all of us. We must support each other because we are all going through similar difficult times. And when there are challenges to democracy and to our freedom, we must stand tall and support each other and become allies and friends rather than enemies. So it doesn't take massive attempts, huge attempts or kind of attempts that are on the front page of a newspaper. I think simple ways. Sometimes you may belong to a settlement house. For example, when I taught dance at the Ribbington Street Settlement House, that brought joy to those children and it introduced them to an art form or to things they might not have ever learned. So there are ways to do that. There's also going to schools as you get a little older and reading to them, reading books to them that they might not learn in school. They might not choose or they might not have in a library at home, an extensive library. There are so many ways. The important thing is to believe in yourself, to believe in the others, to think that. I once heard a saying that said, if you have the opportunity to be right or to be kind, choose kindness because then you will always be right. I try to remember that and I try to be kind and help people. I hope you will do that too and set examples for others. I'm so pleased to meet you today. I hope to see you and hear you again and we can talk of so many other things and we'll see what happens. Does Franklin make it to be President of the United States? Well, the way things are going now, I suspect he will succeed but time will tell. In the meantime, I just want to say to you, thank you so much. Thank you for following a good example of your parents and of others. God bless you and God bless the United States of America. Well, thank you so much, Mrs. Roosevelt. You've touched on this a bit already, but this is our final question that we ask of all of our speakers and it's our final question for you for today. What advice do you, as Eleanor Roosevelt, have for young people today? Be grateful, show gratitude, be kind, and never underestimate your ability. It's amazing what you can accomplish once you put your mind to it. In fact, there's another saying, don't wish for it, work for it. Choose an area that you find appealing. Do what you enjoy. Love your work, but share it with others because it makes a difference. People learn from one another, not just with your nose and a book. We learn from each other. We learn from traveling. We learn from experiences. So always believe in yourself because you live in America. You have every opportunity that anyone could have on this planet. Do your best and be grateful. Thank you. What wonderful advice and thank you again for spending some time with us today and sharing your story and all of this great advice with us. And now one last look at the Docs teach educational activity related to Eleanor Roosevelt and her creation of the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights. I hope you can join next month for our Young Learners program with Ruth Patrick, botanist, limnologist, and recipient of the National Medal of Science. Thank you for participating in our program today.