The question itself has a couple twists and turns, so let's straighten it out fully:

• The public held a certain view of ER in the 1970s.
• The author makes a case against that view.
• In doing so, the author cites a piece of evidence. What was that evidence?

To really stay on track, let's be clear about each part:

• The public held a certain view of ER in the 1970s. As dave13 has pointed out, ER "held a place in the public imagination largely because she was the wife of a particularly influential President. Her own activities were seen as preparing the way for her husband’s election or as a complement to his programs." If we were only to read the texts of the 1970s, we would learn about "the idiosyncratic career of a famous man’s wife."
• The author makes a case against that view. Right up front, the author states that ER "had been important in social reform circles before her husband was elected President and that she continued to advocate different causes than he did." Then, in the second paragraph, the author cites the work of Scharf to continue presenting this alternative view: That ER represented a generation of privileged women "who made the transition from old patterns of female association to new ones." The author suggests that this context of generational change helps us understand ER more than the previous public view.
• In doing so, the author cites a piece of evidence. What was that evidence? There's plenty of evidence in the passage to support the author's case, and only 5 answer choices. So let's go ahead and work through the answer choices.

We're going to eliminate anything that was not used by the author to go against the 1970's public view of Eleanor Roosevelt. We'll probably have to eliminate choices that sound right, because we need to check many more boxes than "Is this true, according to the passage?"


This is true, but does the author cite this fact in order to make a case against the 1970's view?

Not really. ER's wealth, on its own, plays a minor part in both the 1970s view and the author's view. The fact that ER was wealthy doesn't explain the context of change, contradiction, and political awakening that ER's generation lived through. That's why we eliminate (A).


The author never brings this up to go against the 1970's public view of ER. In fact, the only time the author mentions suffrage is to tell us that Scharf studied ER in the years after (not before) women in the U.S. achieved suffrage. Eliminate (B).


As with (B), the author doesn't discuss ER's career in the time period after her husband's death. Eliminate (C) as well.


This is true, but what does it have to do with the author's case? As with (A), this is more of a basic fact that could be incorporated into any view of ER. It's not evidence that the author uses to make a case against the 1970's public view of ER. Eliminate (D).


Aha! This is the first choice that actually cites a fact about ER in order to go against the 1970s view.

The 1970s view understood these activities as "preparing the way for her husband's election or as a complement to his programs." But choice (E) shows that ER was not simply the idiosyncratic wife of a famous man. She participated in the integration of women into mainstream politics, and had priorities that were separate from her husband's. This was part of the social change that she and her generation experienced.

(E) is the only choice that does what the question asked, so we'll stick with it.

I hope this helps!