Trivia

Quit the DAR (Daughters of the American Revolution) because they wouldn't allow contralto Marian Anderson to perform in Constitution Hall - the only venue large enough to accommodate the audience that Ms. Anderson would draw - because she was African-American. Mrs. Roosevelt then made arrangements for Miss Anderson's concert to be performed on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. More than 75,000 people attended.

When Franklin D. Roosevelt was first elected, the Secret Service were not yet protecting the lives of the First Family. She was issued a gun for her own protection, and then they issued her a badge so she was legally allowed to carry the gun.

Was given horrible medical advice, even for 1960s standards. When she first started feeling the affects of tuberculosis, she saw her doctors. They did the standard PPD test (which is still used today to diagnose TB). Even though she received a +PPD result (meaning she has or previously had TB), her doctors dismissed the findings and put her on steroids. She left the country for a goodwill tour of Europe. When she returned she was in worse health; the TB had taken over multiple organ systems. If she had been put on antibiotics that were available, she would have been cured. By giving her steroids her doctors compromised her immune system, and assisted the TB in becoming worse. Even if they had done nothing she would have been better off and had a better chance at survival. This was a huge medical blunder even for the standards of the day.

Her father was an alcoholic who tried his best to receive treatment to stop drinking, but he died when Eleanor was 10.

Incurred the wrath of Southern conservatives during the Depression when she visited the South and discovered that local officials of the WPA (Works Progress Administration, an agency set up to provide government jobs such as highway, bridge and building construction for the unemployed) were deliberately excluding blacks from the program. Outraged, she informed her husband, who ordered an immediate cessation to the practice after firing several agency officials (many Southerners afterwards referred to blacks they saw working on government projects as "Eleanor's niggers"). She further alienated many in the South when she pushed both her husband and Congress to end official racial segregation in the armed forces (although that policy wasn't finally implemented until several years after her husband died).

She shares the distinction of tallest United States First Lady with Michelle Obama and Melania Trump. They are all 5 foot-11 inches tall.

Pictured on a 5¢ US postage stamp issued in her honor, 11 October 1963. Pictured on a 20¢ US postage stamp issued in her honor, 11 May 1984.

She is the only United States First Lady to not change her name after marriage, as she and Franklin D. Roosevelt already shared the same surname. Hillary Clinton kept her maiden name during the first seven years of her marriage, but started using her husband's last name when he ran for Governor of Arkansas is 1982.

Appeared as an actress in at least two surviving Edison films in 1904, "European Rest Cure" and "How a French Nobleman Got a Wife Through the 'New York Herald' Personal Columns". These a year before marrying Franklin D. Roosevelt.

She and husband Franklin D. Roosevelt were fifth cousins.

Children with Franklin D. Roosevelt: Anna Roosevelt (1906), James (1907), Franklin Jr. (1909, died as infant), Elliott Roosevelt (1910), Franklin D. Roosevelt Jr. (1914) and John (1916).

First Lady of the United States (1933-1945).

Charter member of the National Women's Hall of Fame in 1973.

Cousin of Leila Roosevelt and niece of Theodore Roosevelt.

The Marion Anderson concert actually took place on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial.