Roosevelt 's four terms as president from to Widowed in , she served as a United States Delegate to the United Nations General Assembly from to , and took a leading role in designing the text and gaining international support for the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. In , she was given a standing ovation by the assembly upon their adoption of the declaration. Truman later called her the "First Lady of the World" in tribute to her human rights achievements.
Roosevelt was a member of the prominent and wealthy American Roosevelt and Livingston families and a niece of President Theodore Roosevelt. At 15, she attended Allenswood Boarding Academy in London and was deeply influenced by its founder and director Marie Souvestre. Returning to the U. Between and she gave birth to six children, one of whom died in infancy. The Roosevelts' marriage became complicated after Eleanor discovered her husband's affair with her social secretary, Lucy Mercer , in Due to mediation by her mother-in-law, Sara , the liaison was ended officially.
Roosevelt helped persuade her husband to stay in politics after he was stricken with a paralytic illness in Following Franklin's election as governor of New York in , and throughout the remainder of Franklin's public career in government, Roosevelt regularly made public appearances on his behalf; and as first lady, while her husband served as president, she greatly influenced the present scope and future of the role.
Roosevelt was, in her time, one of the world's most widely admired and powerful women. She was the first presidential spouse to hold regular press conferences, write a daily newspaper column, write a monthly magazine column, host a weekly radio show, and speak at a national party convention. On a few occasions, she publicly disagreed with her husband's policies.
She launched an experimental community at Arthurdale, West Virginia , for the families of unemployed miners, later widely regarded as a failure. She advocated for expanded roles for women in the workplace, the civil rights of African Americans and Asian Americans , and the rights of World War II refugees.
