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50 free Eleanor Roosevelt trivia questions with answers — history quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
This Eleanor Roosevelt trivia quiz covers the niece of one president and wife of another who redefined the role of First Lady and then chaired the committee that wrote the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The easier questions cover the basics: her uncle Theodore, her marriage to Franklin, her record 12 years in the White House, her daily column and her nickname 'First Lady of the World'. The harder end is for people who have read the biographies: the London headmistress who shaped her, the affair with Lucy Mercer she discovered in a suitcase, the mother-in-law who ran her household through sliding doors, the papier-mâché teapot she used against her own cousin, the women-only press conferences, the Arthurdale experiment, the DAR resignation and Marian Anderson's Lincoln Memorial concert, the flight with a Tuskegee instructor, the sapphire ring from Lorena Hickok, the 1943 Pacific tour Admiral Halsey praised, René Cassin and John Humphrey on the drafting committee, and the Kennedy commission she chaired at the end of her life. There are also questions on Val-Kill, Hyde Park and how she is ranked by historians. Every answer was checked against encyclopaedia entries for Eleanor Roosevelt, her family, her friends and the institutions she served before publishing, and the supporting sentence is stored with each question. If you enjoy this one, our Franklin D. Roosevelt, Teddy Roosevelt, US first ladies and Harry S. Truman quizzes are natural next stops.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Eleanor was the niece of which US president?
Theodore Roosevelt
Her father was Theodore's younger brother; her uncle gave her away at her wedding.
Q 02Eleanor's father died in 1894 after doing what during a fit of delirium tremens?
Jumping from a window
An alcoholic confined to a sanitarium, he survived the fall but died of a seizure; her mother had died of diphtheria two years earlier.
Q 03At 15 Eleanor was sent to Allenswood Academy, a finishing school in which city?
London
Its headmistress Marie Souvestre cultivated independent thinking; Eleanor learned fluent French and kept Souvestre's portrait on her desk for life.
Q 04Franklin D. Roosevelt was Eleanor's what?
Fifth cousin once removed
She never had to change her surname; her uncle the president quipped it was 'a good thing to keep the name in the family'.
Q 05Why was Eleanor and Franklin's wedding set for March 17, 1905?
So President Theodore Roosevelt could attend while in New York for St. Patrick's Day
His attendance made the front page of The New York Times.
Q 06Franklin's mother Sara connected the couple's New York townhouse to her own how?
By sliding doors
Sara ran both households for a decade and told her grandchildren she was 'more your mother than your mother is'.
Q 07How many children did Eleanor bear between 1906 and 1916?
Six
One, the first Franklin Jr., died in infancy; she later wrote that understanding small children 'did not come naturally to me'.
Q 08In 1918 Eleanor discovered Franklin's affair with Lucy Mercer, who held what job?
Her social secretary
She found a bundle of love letters while unpacking his suitcase; Sara threatened to disinherit Franklin if he divorced.
Q 09Lucy Mercer, by then Mrs Rutherfurd, was present at what event in April 1945?
Franklin's fatal stroke at Warm Springs
Their renewed meetings had been arranged by daughter Anna; the family kept the affair from the press until 1966.
Q 10Where was the family holidaying in August 1921 when Franklin was struck by his paralytic illness?
Campobello Island, New Brunswick
Eleanor fought her mother-in-law's wish that he retire as a country gentleman and pushed him to stay in politics.
Q 11In the 1924 New York governor's race, Eleanor trailed her Republican cousin in a car fitted with what?
A giant papier-mâché teapot
It emitted fake steam to link him to the Teapot Dome scandal; she later admitted the stunt was beneath her dignity, and he never forgave her.
Q 12What does the name Val-Kill, which Eleanor gave her Hyde Park cottage, roughly mean in Dutch?
Waterfall-stream
It was the only home she ever personally owned and became the Eleanor Roosevelt National Historic Site in 1977.
Q 13With Marion Dickerman and Nancy Cook, Eleanor bought which New York City girls' academy in 1927?
Todhunter School
Q 21The Pennsylvania town of Norvelt is named for whom?
The First Lady herself
It combines the last syllables of EleaNOR RooseVELT; she visited the homestead community in 1937.
Q 22Eleanor Roosevelt quit the Daughters of the American Revolution in 1939 after it barred which singer from its hall?
Marian Anderson
She helped arrange the contralto's Easter Sunday concert on the Lincoln Memorial steps before a huge integrated crowd.
Q 23Roughly how many people attended the contralto's 1939 Lincoln Memorial concert?
75,000
Millions more listened by radio; Anderson later became the first Black singer at the Metropolitan Opera in 1955.
The same year the three friends and Caroline O'Day founded Val-Kill Industries, a furniture workshop, on the Hyde Park estate.
Q 14Eleanor was the longest-serving First Lady in US history, covering how many years?
12
She held the role for Franklin's four terms from March 1933 to April 1945.
Q 15Which of these was Eleanor NOT the first presidential spouse to do?
Run for elected office
She was also the first to write a monthly magazine column and host a weekly radio show.
Q 16Who was barred from Eleanor's White House press conferences?
Male reporters
The rule forced newspapers to keep women reporters on staff; she held 348 conferences over 12 years.
Q 17What was the title of Eleanor's syndicated newspaper column, which ran six days a week from 1935 to 1962?
My Day
The title was suggested by the United Features Syndicate; her separate advice column If You Ask Me ran in Ladies' Home Journal and McCall's.
Q 18Eleanor set out to match Franklin's presidential salary in 1933, earning how much herself?
$75,000
She gave most of it to charity; a New Yorker cartoon that year had a coal miner exclaiming 'For gosh sakes, here comes Mrs. Roosevelt!'
Q 19After Eleanor visited the 1933 Bonus Army camp, what did a veteran say the new president did, unlike Hoover?
'Roosevelt sent his wife'
Hoover had dispersed the earlier march by force; the 1933 marchers were offered Civilian Conservation Corps jobs.
Q 20Eleanor's chief project of the 1930s was a planned community for unemployed miners in which state?
West Virginia
Arthurdale was later widely judged a failure, and the government sold its last holdings there at a loss in 1941.
Q 24Eleanor lobbied for the 1934 Costigan–Wagner Bill, which aimed to do what?
Make lynching a federal crime
She arranged a meeting between Franklin and NAACP president Walter White, but the bill did not pass.
Q 25What did Eleanor famously say after flying with a Black instructor at Tuskegee?
'Well, you can fly all right.'
The publicity boosted the Tuskegee Airmen, though it is often wrongly credited with starting the training programme, which was already five months old.
Q 26Which newspaper said Eleanor should be 'forced to retire from public life' for defending Japanese Americans?
Los Angeles Times
She warned against 'great hysteria against minority groups' and privately opposed Franklin's internment order, Executive Order 9066.
Q 27From 1941 Eleanor co-chaired the Office of Civilian Defense with which big-city mayor?
Fiorello La Guardia of New York
She had considered Red Cross work in Europe but advisers feared the president's wife could be captured.
Q 28Which admiral said Eleanor Roosevelt's 1943 South Pacific tour did 'more good than any other person' who visited?
William Halsey Jr.
She was left shaken and depressed by the carnage she saw on the morale-building trip.
Q 29Which AP reporter, who 'fell madly in love' with Eleanor during the 1932 campaign, gave her a sapphire ring she wore at the 1933 inauguration?
Lorena Hickok
'Hick' resigned from the AP over the closeness and became an investigator for a New Deal relief agency; some 3,000 of their letters survive.
Q 30Which New York State Police sergeant, her bodyguard, remained Eleanor's close friend until her death?
Earl Miller
Rumours of an affair were never substantiated, and their letters are said to have been bought and destroyed or locked away.