Eleanor Roosevelt a personal and public life

"To those who met them casually, American women seemed a favored species. Again and again European travelers commented on the elevated status of the ladies they encountered in their voyages in the United States. Held in respect, relieved of contact with brutal necessities, allowed to expand their minds, independent guardians of the culture - these were the conventional descriptions. True, a surprisingly large percentage of them labored for a livelihood, and female wage earners were no better off than their male counterparts. As the nineteenth century drew to a close, the number who worked at home or in factories steadily increased. But women of the middle classes were the pampered darlings of the society - elevated on pedestals away from the cares of the workaday world and guarded against all unpleasantness. One of them was Eleanor Roosevelt, daughter of a well-to-do family, bearer of a distinguished name, favored by fortune every respect. But sooner or later she had to confront a problem others did not: what to do with herself."
"Examines Eleanor Roosevelt's life as a professional woman, a wife and mother, and, finally, a woman who illuminated her times and exemplified the complexities of womanhood in the twentieth century."@en