Eleanor Roosevelt chaired the committee that drafted and approved the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

Eleanor Roosevelt was born October 11, 1884 in New York City.  She died a few blocks away on November 7, 1962.  Between these two places she literally traveled the world for human rights and humanitarian causes. 

Beginning in 1945, after her husband's death, she became a key figure in establishing international human rights as a core part of the United Nations framework.  She was appointed by President Truman to the United States Delegation to the UN General Assembly, was the first chairperson of the Human Rights Commission, helped to orchestrate the adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948, and was instrumental in the early drafting of the two major international treaties on human rights, the Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the Covenant on Economic,  Social and Cultural Rights.