The Eleanor Roosevelt Papers is pleased to announce that new labor education materials on Eleanor Roosevelt, Human Rights and Workers’ Rights are now available online. Eleanor Roosevelt worked closely with many unions and was a champion of workers’ rights, civil rights, and women’s rights around the world. Their collaboration is best reflected in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, particularly Article 23, which establishes everyone’s right to work without any discrimination, the right to equal pay for equal work, and the right to form and join trade unions.

Until now, there has been very little historical information available about Eleanor Roosevelt’s support for unions and the unions’ support for human rights. In labor workshops over this past year, a great deal of interest was found in these topics. Roosevelt's words and actions provide inspiration and examples for meeting today’s problems.

After talking with many union and university labor educators, it was decided that the best way to make new materials available is on the web. Background text, letters, speeches, quotes, and photographs can be downloaded and used to develop new workshops and courses or incorporated into existing programs. For example, a copy of Eleanor Roosevelt’s union membership card (The Newspaper Guild, 1936-1962) is now available at www.gwu.edu/~erpapers/workers.