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Eleanor Roosevelt Biography - Marriage to FDR

As a young woman living in New York City, Eleanor became interested in the Junior League, an organization in its formative years. Her involvement in the Junior League led to teaching calisthenics and dancing at the Rivington Street Settlement House. Later she would be the person to introduce Franklin Roosevelt to the world of settlement houses and tenements. In the autumn of 1903 Franklin Delano Roosevelt (Eleanor's fifth cousin once removed) asked to marry her. She accepted and the wedding was held on St. Patrick's Day, March 17, 1905. In November of 1904 Eleanor's uncle Theodore had written to Franklin: "I am as fond of Eleanor as if she were my daughter...You and Eleanor are true and brave, and I believe you love each other unselfishly...May all good fortune attend you both." Theodore became the guest of honor at the wedding and filled in the role of Eleanor's father. The following summer she and Franklin left for an extended honeymoon in Europe.

As the wife of the Assistant Secretary of the Navy, she was active in the Red Cross canteen activities in Washington and was an organizer of the Navy Red Cross during the years of World War I. A post war trip to Europe made a profound impression and fostered feelings and beliefs that would be evident in her later years. In her autobiography she notes "the picture of desolation fostered in me an undying hate of war.... The conviction of the uselessness of war as a means of finding any final solution to international difficulties grew stronger and stronger...."

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