[originaltext] Eleanor Roosevelt was the First lady of the United States for

Eleanor Roosevelt was the First lady of the United States for some twelve years, but she was much more than that. Long before she became the First Lady, she was working for a better society. Her many activities included work to improve lots of disadvantaged women and to help all women develop their potential. In 1902, at about the time she became involved with Franklin Roosevelt, she began to work as a volunteer at the Rivington Street Settlement House in one of New York’s slum districts. There she taught young women who could not regularly attend school due to their long working hours. This experience, Eleanor’s first extended contact with poverty and its demands, helped shape her social conscience; it also exposed Franklin to real poverty for the first time.