[1] Her parents were Maria E. Miller (1827–1910) and Theron Rudd Butler (1813–1884), an art collector and former President of the Sixth Avenue Railroad Company.
[4] Eleanor Rudd Butler married Dr. Henry Martin Sanders, a Baptist pastor, and a board of trustees of Vassar College from 1895 until his death in 1921.[when?
[6] In November 1894, Sanders founded the League for Political Education in her living room on 433 Fifth Avenue in New York City, where she hosted the first group meeting with five other people.
[7][8] The other attendees in the first meeting included Dr. Mary Putnam Jacobi, Catherine Amor Bennett Abbe (1843–1920), Lucia Gilbert Runkle (1844–1927), Lee Wood Haggin (1856–1934), and Adele Marion Fielde.
[7] The League initially fought for passage of the Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution and provided general education on social and political issues.