Eleanor Roosevelt: The Struggle For Human Rights

Eleanor Roosevelt was born in October of 1884 in New York City. She was raised in a strict home and attended Allenswood finishing school in London at age 15 for three years. She then returned to the States and began her humanitarian work. In 1905, Eleanor married Franklin D. Roosevelt and quickly became a mother of six and the wife of a politician. She was appointed as her husband’s political stand-in when he fell ill with polio in 1921. Eleanor had numerous political ties in addition to being an active member of the Women’s Division of the Democratic Party, the League of Women Voters, and the Women’s Trade Union League. When Franklin Roosevelt became president, it only enlarged her role and soon she was traveling across the United States …show more content…
After her husband’s death, Eleanor Roosevelt was appointed to by President Truman to be a United Nations delegate and then became chairperson of the commission on human rights. Eleanor was noted for using a common sense platform which represented the needs and wants of a common woman or man. This platform could reach people who felt they had no voice in political issues. The Struggle for Human Rights was delivered by Eleanor Roosevelt in 1948 addressing the leaders and citizens of the U.S.S.R., Yugoslavia, Ukraine, Byelorussia, and a few other states who would not accept the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. She was trying to convince them that they were denying, or being denied, their natural rights and freedoms. Eleanor Roosevelt’s The Struggle for Human Rights was convincing because of the appeal to ethos, an informal tone, and the use examples for …show more content…
In her speech, Eleanor states, “Democracy, freedom, and human rights have come to have a definite meaning to the people of the world which we must not allow any nation to so change that they are made synonymous with suppression and dictatorship,” (Roosevelt 12). She goes on to say, “There are basic differences that show up…between a democratic and totalitarian country,” and then uses examples to prove her point (Roosevelt 13). Eleanor Roosevelt goes on with examples like, “In a totalitarian state a trade-union is an instrument used by the government to enforce duties, not assert rights. Propaganda material which the government desires the workers to have is furnished by the trade-unions to be circulated to their members,” and, “Our trade-unions, on the other hand, are solely the instrument of the workers themselves. They represent the workers in their relations with the government and with management and they are free to develop their own opinions without government help or interference,” to validate her statements (Roosevelt 17 and