Eleanor Roosevelt

1884-1962
First lady of the US from 1933 - 1945
Married to Franklin D. Roosevelt
She travelled widely, advocated for the underprivileged and was a delegate to the UN general assembly.
first first lady to hold press conferences, write a newspaper column (daily!), host a weekly radio show, and speak at a national party convention.

She was controversial at the time, because of her outspokenness on issues such as civil rights for African-Americans
She wrote seventy-three hundred newspaper columns and twenty-seven books.
in 1933 she took a 2.5mile ride underground inot a coal mine to see the difficult conditions that minors worked in.
She attended a meeting in Birmingham, Alabama. Back in 1938, state law prohibited blacks and whites from sitting together at public gatherings. She walked in and sat on the black side with her friend, civil rights leader Mary McLeod Bethune. The police informed her she was breaking the law and so she picked up her chair and placed it in the center aisle.
In 1958, she received a call from the FBI saying they couldn't guarantee her safety as she was about to fly to Tennessee to speak at a civil-rights workshop. The KKK had put a $25,000 bounty on her head. "We can’t protect you.” they said. “I didn’t ask for your protection,” she replied. “I have a commitment. I’m going.” she met up with a friend, a seventy-one-year-old white woman and drove off into the night with only a loaded pistol placed on the front seat between them. She was seventy-four.
She was afraid of public speaking, but gave an estimated 1400 speeches, with minimal notes. She is still known as one of the most popular orators of all time.