Humanist profile: Eleanor Roosevelt: First Lady, United States of America (1933-1945).

"I would not judge a character by his belief or unbelief. I would judge his character by his deeds; and no matter what he said about his beliefs, his behavior would soon show whether he was a man of good character or bad."

--Eleanor Roosevelt, from The Wisdom of Eleanor Roosevelt

Eleanor Roosevelt was born in New York City on October 11, 1884, to parents Anna Hall and Elliot Roosevelt, younger brother of President Theodore Roosevelt. After her parents died when she was young, she was raised by her maternal grandmother. She attended Allensworth Academy in London where she met Marie Souvestre who, with her commitment to Humanism and social justice, was a significant influence on the young Eleanor.

Later, after her 1905 marriage to distant cousin Franklin Delano Roosevelt, she actively supported her husband during his senate years and, ultimately, his presidency. Breaking from the traditional role as First Lady, however, she became an active leader who lent her support to the rights of blacks, women, and workers.

After her husband's death in 1945 she continued her work as a political activist and social humanitarian. President Harry S. Truman appointed her to the first American delegation of the United Nations in 1946. She later served as chair of the UN Human Rights Commission, overseeing the creation of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, a document she regarded as her greatest accomplishment.

Roosevelt also emerged as a leader of the Democratic Party, lending her support to various candidates, including Adlai Stevenson in 1956 and John F. Kennedy in 1960, who later appointed her as head of the President's Commission on the Status of Women.

As a long-time friend of the New York Society for Ethical Culture and speaker at many of its meetings, she fully supported its summer youth program, the Encampment for Citizenship. This program, because of its unique humanistic empowerment of young people, came under attack by conservatives during the McCarthy era of the 1950s who claimed it was un-American and socialistic. But Roosevelt vehemently defended the program, lobbied supporters to speak out against its critics, and from 1946 to 1962 served as chair of its Board of Sponsors.

Throughout her life she wrote numerous papers, autobiographies, and books, including a syndicated newspaper column, My Day, where she freely expressed her opinions. She also praised Lloyd and Mary Morain's popular 1954 book, Humanism as the Next Step, mentioning the possibility of using it to assist with her social reform programs.

Eleanor Roosevelt died November 7, 1962, in New York City at the age of seventy-eight. Today, her public statue is the only one in the city honoring a woman and the only one anywhere honoring a first lady.

HUMANISM is a rational philosophy informed by science, inspired by art, and motivated by compassion. Affirming the dignity of each human being, it supports the maximization of individual liberty and opportunity consonant with social and planetary responsibility. It advocates the extension of participatory democracy and the expansion of the open society, standing for human rights and social justice. Free of supernaturalism, it recognizes human beings as a part of nature and holds that values--be they religious, ethical, social, or political--have their source in human nature, experience, and culture. Humanism thus derives the goals of life from human need and interest rather than from theological or ideological abstractions and asserts that humanity must take responsibility for its own destiny.

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