The Young Eleanor Roosevelt

A Lonely Time
In 1918, Eleanor discovered that Franklin had been having an affair with her personal secretary Lucy Page Mercer. She offered to divorce him, but the possible fall-out — damage to his political career, not to mention the well-being of their children — led them to maintain the marriage in name, but not in spirit. When this photograph was taken in 1920, Eleanor was summering at Campobello Island, in New Brunswick, Canada, while Franklin was out campaigning for the vice presidency.

• FDR and the Making of America