October 11, 1884 – November 7, 1962
- 1933 – 1945 First Lady of the United States
- 1957 – New York CCW
- she carried a pistol instead of Secret Service protection
“After the head of the Secret Service found I was not going to allow an agent to accompany me everywhere, he went one day to Louis Howe [FDR’s secretary], plunked a revolver down on the table and said ‘Well, all right, if Mrs. Roosevelt is going to drive around the country alone, at least ask her to carry this in the car.’”
Eleanor’s autobiography
“When Roosevelt defied death threats by the Ku Klux Klan to travel to Tennessee in 1958 to attend a civil rights workshop, she and the woman who picked her up at the Nashville airport drove to the conference with ‘a loaded pistol on the front seat between them.’”
her biographer Allida Black
“You gain strength, courage and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. You are able to say to yourself, ‘I have lived through this horror. I can take the next thing that comes along.’ You must do the thing you think you cannot do.”
Eleanor Roosevelt, “You Learn by Living: Eleven Keys to a More Fulfilling Life”
About Eleanor Roosevelt
Eleanor Roosevelt (1884-1962), First Lady of the United States from 1933 to 1945, is often cited by gun rights advocates as a prominent example of a public figure who relied on a handgun for personal protection. Soon after arriving at the White House in 1933, she refused to have Secret Service agents follow her everywhere and insisted on driving herself. The head of the Secret Service responded by asking that she at least carry a revolver in the car, and she later had a friend, a former bodyguard to Franklin Roosevelt, teach her target shooting.
After her husband’s death she moved to New York City and obtained a permit to carry a handgun; that permit is now held by the Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library and Museum. In 1958, at age 74, she traveled to Tennessee for a civil rights workshop at the Highlander Folk School after the FBI warned of a Ku Klux Klan bounty on her and said it could not protect her; she and a friend drove through the night from Nashville with a loaded pistol on the seat between them. One friend later said she sometimes carried the permit without the gun.
Key Facts
- October 11, 1884: Born
- 1933: Declined a constant Secret Service escort and began carrying a revolver in her car
- 1933-1945: First Lady of the United States
- After 1945: Obtained a New York permit to carry a handgun
- 1958: Traveled armed to the Highlander Folk School in Tennessee
- November 7, 1962: Died at age 78
Sources
- Eleanor Roosevelt: The First Lady’s License to Carry a Pistol – Slate
- Her Own Bodyguard – David Kopel, National Review
Profiles on Minuteman University.com are editorial content compiled from public sources. Inclusion does not imply endorsement of, sponsorship by, or affiliation with this site or the Gun Websites Firearms Network. Corrections and removal requests are welcome through Contact Us.