Eleanor Roosevelt

Spent 18 months chairing the committee that drafted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights — at age 64, after her husband was already dead.

After FDR died in 1945, Truman appointed Eleanor as U.S. delegate to the new UN. She chaired the Human Rights Commission for two years and ran the drafting of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights — 18 months of clause-by-clause negotiation across the Soviet bloc, the Arab states, and the colonial powers. Adopted December 10, 1948, by 48–0 with 8 abstentions. "Where, after all, do universal human rights begin? In small places, close to home." She was 64 when the work started, 64 when it shipped, and the document is now translated into 500+ languages — the most-translated text on Earth. The slow-art version of statesmanship: do the patient committee work no head of state had time for.