Eleanor Roosevelt
was an author, political activist, columnist teacher, diplomat,
and first lady. She was also a worker and a union member. While
born to a life of wealth and privilege, as a syndicated newspaper
columnist she was a member of The Newspaper Guild for over
twenty-five years and rarely if ever missed a deadline. She
was a champion of workers around the world.
The men and women of the labor movement valued her support
and her friendship. They worked with her as she guided the
Universal Declaration of Human Rights to completion as a delegate
to the United Nations in 1948. But this was not the beginning
or the end of their work together. From her first meeting with
the Women’s Trade Union League in 1919 until her death
in 1962 she was, to quote the AFL-CIO, “One of us.”
Eleanor Roosevelt led by example. Her working relationships
with union leaders, union members and especially union women,
offer lessons today for those who seek social justice and human
rights in the workplace at home and abroad. Working in partnership,
they overcame barriers of class, race, and gender. And ER believed
that what she did on a national and international level, everyone
could and should do on a local level for “Where after
all do universal human rights begin? In small places, close
to home.”
- Her words inspire and guide us.
- Her actions provide examples.
- Her union partnership offers a model for today.
The pages that follow provide background information to be
used in current labor education programs. The materials under
Teaching
Aides
are
one-page handouts and can be downloaded and incorporated into
existing workshops or courses on workers' rights, human rights,
labor history, and union women’s leadership. The documents
and photographs presented here reveal only a small sample of
the variety of material available to labor educators, teachers,
students and scholars interested in Eleanor Roosevelt, the
labor movement, and social justice.
After her death in 1962, the AFL-CIO honored Eleanor Roosevelt's
courage and commitment to labor and social justice, saying:
Throughout the crowded years of her lifetime, Eleanor
Roosevelt was the tireless champion of working men and women…Wherever
there were battles to be fought …for minimum wage or
social security…on behalf of sharecroppers or migratory
workers…against the unspeakable evils of discrimination,
segregation or child labor…for union shop or against
spurious ‘right-to-work-laws’…she was an
ardent advocate of the ideals of the United Nations…the
architect of its Human Rights program…But more than that:
she was one of us…
AFL-CIO 1963*
* AFL-CIO Pamphlet, 1963, George
Meany Memorial Archives, Silver Spring, MD.