How did Eleanor Roosevelt change America?
1. She was the first First Lady to take a very active role in her husband’s administration. Also, she didn’t just do this behind the scenes: she regularly gave speeches and attended events to further FDR’s and her own causes. (Technically, Edith Wilson, Woodrow Wilson’s wife, was the first First Lady to wield enormous power. She was the de facto president while Woodrow Wilson recovered from a stroke. She literally would not let anyone but his doctor see him, and she would come out of his room with words like “The president says we should….”) In any case, many saw her visibility and activism as distinctly unladylike, and when certain forces of reaction thought she had gone too far, she got death threats. 2. Like every First Lady, she had an influence on her husband’s policies and actions, but her influence is generally seen as greater—or let’s say more pivotal—than others’. She had a tendency to push her husband to the left on certain issues. 3. Although the people who hated FDR h
