V.

On Her Own

Franklin died on April 12, 1945. In the following years, Eleanor remained active in the Democratic Party, always supporting liberal factions, but declined to run for public office. A lukewarm supporter of Franklin’s successor, Harry S. Truman, she accepted Truman’s appointment as U.S. representative to the United Nations (UN) in 1945, a position she held until 1953. From 1946 to 1951 she was chair of the UN Human Rights Commission. Under her leadership, this commission wrote the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and she played a critical role in its unanimous adoption in 1948.

In the early 1950s she was one of the first prominent Americans to denounce Senator Joseph McCarthy and his overzealous witch-hunt for alleged Communists in the U.S. government. She was also a strong public advocate of birth control and an articulate opponent of public aid to parochial schools.

In 1960 Eleanor Roosevelt reluctantly supported John F. Kennedy for president. She was critical of Kennedy for not being strong enough on civil rights and for his past close ties to McCarthy and his refusal ever to speak out against him. In 1961 Kennedy appointed her as U.S. representative to the UN and made her chair of the National Commission on the Status of Women, a position she held until her death on November 7, 1962, at the age of 78.