Often called the greatest of the first ladies, Eleanor Roosevelt
        largely created the modern 'first ladyship'. Drab and insecure in her
        youth, she was a retiring woman until her husband Franklin's
        contraction of polio in 1921 forced her into the public arena.
            Before becoming first lady, Eleanor had been teaching, lecturing,
        writing, running a business, and participating in New York politics.
        When she moved to the White House, her pace increased. No first lady 
        before or since has been so publicly engaged. She wrote an
        autobiography and a daily newspaper column (donating the royalties to
        charity), answered thousands of letters, held press conferences for
        women reporters, and gave radio broadcasts, speeches, and public
        lectures. She travelled across the country and around the world. She
        flew on airplanes and visited coal mines. In fact her busy schedule
        did not include time for the careful management of the White House
        itself, which led one visitor to complain of soiling her gloves on a
        dirty bannister.
            Eleanor was heard as well as seen. Unlike most previous first
        ladies, she was vociferous in support of social causes. Attacking
        racism, she publicly resigned from the Daughters of the American
        Revolution when the group discriminated against a black opera singer.
        She supported women's rights and helped secure the first female
        cabinet appointment for Frances Perkins. She also advocated programs
        to assist the young and the poor.
            Eleanor's political influence within the Roosevelt administration
        is difficult to measure, because Franklin sought so many opinions and
        amalgamated them all in the policies he pursued. But there is no
        question that her influence was extensive. Eleanor served in the
        National Youth Administration and the Office of Civilian Defence. More
        significantly, she was incessantly advocating ideas and policies to
        her husband, leaving materials for him to read, and arranging for him
        to meet people with new ideas. For Franklin she was both eyes and ears
        due to her constant travel, and also a sounding board, from off whom
        he could bounce ideas. Sometimes he would take her arguments and
        repeat them as his own; she never knew if she had persuaded him or
        simply helped him clarify his thoughts.
            Eleanor Roosevelt was more publicly and politically engaged than
        any previous first lady. She "experimented with the role of
        president's' wife and changed it, opening up what had been hidden and
        breaking down barriers that had stood firm for a century and a half."
        In so doing she created new possibilities for her successors.

        The Presidency,
        A history of the office of the President of the United States
        from 1789 to the present,
        Editor Michael Nelson.