> EleanorBot

From Everything Changes, the Awl’s newsletter. Subscribe here.

I’ve been on kind of an Eleanor Roosevelt reading binge lately. She led a privileged life, to be sure, but not an easy one. Here is a lady who went through some shit: She was ignored and unloved by her beautiful mother because she was ugly. She lost her mother, a brother, and her beloved, alcoholic father before she was 10 years old. She was left to help bring up her surviving younger brother. She bore six children herself, one of whom died as an infant. Her husband developed polio. He cheated on her with his secretaries. Throughout all of this she was maybe gay.

Despite of/because of all this she served in the White House for 12 years. She helped lead her country through an economic depression and a world war. She championed civil rights, the United Nations, refugees, and women’s right to work.

I like her a lot so I made a bot for you of smart things she said. It’s called @_EleanorBot_.

If you want realtalk from an immanently practical dead first lady who lived through times as crazy as ours, feel free to follow. And I hope you have a good weekend.

From Everything Changes, the Awl’s newsletter. Subscribe here.