When President Roosevelt died in 1945, Eleanor Roosevelt assumed that her own public career was over. But in fact, the years between her leaving the White House and her death in 1962, Eleanor traveled widely overseas, wrote prolifically, became an important influence in Democratic politics, and, most notably, oversaw the production of the United Nations’ historic Universal Declaration of Human Rights. In tribute to what Eleanor accomplished during these years, President Truman described her as the First Lady of the World.

Sandra Opdycke, Ph.D. is an historian. She has written books about the flu epidemic of 1918, the woman suffrage movement, the WPA of the 1930s, and Bellevue Hospital, as well as a biography of Jane Addams, an historical atlas of American women’s history, and several co-authored books and articles on social policy. She worked for a number of years at Hudson River Psychiatric Center, and later taught American History and Urban History at Bard, Vassar, and Marist Colleges. She serves as an occasional lecturer at the Center for Lifetime Studies in Poughkeepsie.