Following her husband’s death, she became a delegate to the United Nations, where she continued to work for civil and human rights throughout the world, becoming the world’s most famous human rights advocate. She used her influence in 1948 to help convince President Truman to aid the newly created country of Israel.

Roosevelt was born in New York City into privileged circumstances; her uncle was President Theodore Roosevelt. Her mother died when she was eight years old, her father died two years later, and she was then raised by her maternal grandmother. A very shy teenager, she received encouragement from her headmistress at the boarding school she attended in England. She was 21 when she married her distant cousin, Franklin Roosevelt. They had six children, one of whom died of influenza as an infant. She offered her husband a divorce when she discovered that he was having an affair with her private secretary; he refused, but the discovery may have encouraged her to develop a separate career.