A niece of President Theodore Roosevelt, she married her cousin Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Although extremely shy, she became active in politics after her husband was stricken with polio in 1921. When Franklin D. Roosevelt became president in 1933, Eleanor made herself a powerful voice on behalf of a wide range of social causes, including youth employment and civil rights for blacks and women. After her husband's death, she continued in public life. She served as a U.S. delegate to the United Nations and helped draft the U.N. Declaration of Human Rights.