Lady Bountiful: First Lady and a Champion of Advocating the Equality of Women, Worker's Rights, Child Welfare and Civil Rights
Ashley Matthews
Nash Community College
Introduction to Social Work 110
Professor Lucas
October 10, 2015
Biography of Eleanor Roosevelt
Anna Eleanor Roosevelt was born on October 11, 1884 in Manhattan, New York. She came from a privileged wealthy family. Her father was Elliot Roosevelt, brother to future president Theodore Roosevelt, and her mother Anne Rebecca Hall was a debutant known for being a great beauty. Her mother was disappointed in her plainness. She was the eldest of 3 children and was often described in her youth as being awkward and shy. This was likely the results of her mother’s constant …show more content…
Eleanor was to become an orphan at the age of ten. Her mother Anna died on December 7, 1892 after contracting diphtheria. Elliot was a sever alcoholic who had to be institutionalized several times for treatment of the disease. Two years after the death of her mother, Elliot died after a failed attempted to commit suicide by jumping off a building that caused a fatal seizure. She would spend most of the reminder of her childhood under the care of her strict maternal grandmother. In 1889, at the age of fifteen, she was sent to London to receive an education at Allenswood Academy. There she would meet the head mistress who would become her mentor, Marie Souvesture. Marie was to introduce the issues of social injustices’ of the working class and the need for social reform to young Eleanor by showing her the conditions the working poor had to suffer. In 1903 she joined the Junior League of New York where she taught dancing to immigrants and calisthenics. She joined the Consumers' League and investigated working conditions in the garment districts. She also worked in tenement and settlement …show more content…
She was inspired by the teachings of her former mentor and friend Marie Souvesture and the conditions of the poor she witnessed in her travels. She started volunteering as a teacher for poor immigrant children at Manhattan’s Rivington Street Settlement House . She also join the National Consumers’ League, who’s goal was to end unsafe working conditions in the work place. In her visitations to sweat shops which where overcrowded, filthy, and dangerous she became outraged at the conditions and brought about an endorsement agreement called “The Consumer’s White Label”. It stated that a worker had to be paid for overtime and no one under the age of sixteen could be hired. Some of the many organizations she was active in during her years prior to 1920 where The Women’s Trade Union Leage, the Women’s City Club, and the League of Women Voters. Eleanor felt like it was her social duty and that she was making a tangible difference by being involved in these social reform and human rights groups. Behind the sceens she quietly supported birth control advocates like Margaret Sanger. She cofounded Val-Kill Industries, which was nonprofit furniture factory that taught farmers how to make colonial
Ashley Matthews
Nash Community College
Introduction to Social Work 110
Professor Lucas
October 10, 2015
Biography of Eleanor Roosevelt
Anna Eleanor Roosevelt was born on October 11, 1884 in Manhattan, New York. She came from a privileged wealthy family. Her father was Elliot Roosevelt, brother to future president Theodore Roosevelt, and her mother Anne Rebecca Hall was a debutant known for being a great beauty. Her mother was disappointed in her plainness. She was the eldest of 3 children and was often described in her youth as being awkward and shy. This was likely the results of her mother’s constant …show more content…
Eleanor was to become an orphan at the age of ten. Her mother Anna died on December 7, 1892 after contracting diphtheria. Elliot was a sever alcoholic who had to be institutionalized several times for treatment of the disease. Two years after the death of her mother, Elliot died after a failed attempted to commit suicide by jumping off a building that caused a fatal seizure. She would spend most of the reminder of her childhood under the care of her strict maternal grandmother. In 1889, at the age of fifteen, she was sent to London to receive an education at Allenswood Academy. There she would meet the head mistress who would become her mentor, Marie Souvesture. Marie was to introduce the issues of social injustices’ of the working class and the need for social reform to young Eleanor by showing her the conditions the working poor had to suffer. In 1903 she joined the Junior League of New York where she taught dancing to immigrants and calisthenics. She joined the Consumers' League and investigated working conditions in the garment districts. She also worked in tenement and settlement …show more content…
She was inspired by the teachings of her former mentor and friend Marie Souvesture and the conditions of the poor she witnessed in her travels. She started volunteering as a teacher for poor immigrant children at Manhattan’s Rivington Street Settlement House . She also join the National Consumers’ League, who’s goal was to end unsafe working conditions in the work place. In her visitations to sweat shops which where overcrowded, filthy, and dangerous she became outraged at the conditions and brought about an endorsement agreement called “The Consumer’s White Label”. It stated that a worker had to be paid for overtime and no one under the age of sixteen could be hired. Some of the many organizations she was active in during her years prior to 1920 where The Women’s Trade Union Leage, the Women’s City Club, and the League of Women Voters. Eleanor felt like it was her social duty and that she was making a tangible difference by being involved in these social reform and human rights groups. Behind the sceens she quietly supported birth control advocates like Margaret Sanger. She cofounded Val-Kill Industries, which was nonprofit furniture factory that taught farmers how to make colonial