Sara and Eleanor

We think we know the story of Eleanor Roosevelt--the shy, awkward girl who would marry Franklin Roosevelt and redefine the role of First Lady, becoming a civil rights activist and an inspiration to generations of young women. As legend has it, the bane of Eleanor's life was her demanding and domineering mother-in-law, FDR's mother Sara Delano Roosevelt. Biographers have overlooked the complexity of a relationship that had, over the years, been reinterpreted and embellished by Eleanor herself. Th