Women's Rights Advocate

ER made important contributions to the postwar women's rights movement. Long an advocate for the advancement of women in government, she continued to lobby for women's appointments within Presidential administrations and at the U.N. and urged women to run for political office.

During the war, Eleanor had been an advocate for women on equality of pay in defense industries and government-funded day care. Now, she dropped her long-standing opposition to an Equal Rights Amendment to the Constitution.

In 1961, ER accepted John F. Kennedy's invitation to chair the President's Commission on the Status of Women. But her final illness in 1962 forced her to stop working with the committee before its final report was issued.