In 1926, Eleanor Roosevelt convened with three of her closest friends, Caroline O’Day, Marion Dickerman, and Nancy Cook, to discuss the probability of a bold new venture. The four women, all active in New York’s Democratic Party, agreed to open a workshop that specialized in the production of Colonial Revival furniture.
Their business would be conducted on the Roosevelts’ Val-Kill property in Hyde Park, Dutchess County, NY and appropriately named “Val-Kill Industries.” Two years prior, Franklin D. Roosevelt built a quaint Dutch Colonial cottage on the property for Eleanor, Marion, and Nancy. This came to be called the “Stone Cottage,” and a more industrial building was constructed for the workshop. [Read more…] about Val-Kill Industries & The American Arts and Crafts Movement
“Saturday was a sad day for all of us and I know that all of Fala’s friends will also be sad to know that he slept away, and the little dog’s story had come to an end.”
“Last week I acquired from my husband’s estate about two-thirds of the land which he owned here in Hyde Park. My son Elliott and I have gone into partnership and we are going to farm the land on a commercial basis,” Eleanor Roosevelt wrote in her “My Day” column on August 19, 1947.
Born in Brest, the daughter of a novelist and educated in Paris, she was a lesbian, a feminist, and a formidable educationist. Today her presence may be largely forgotten, but she left a legacy on both sides of the Atlantic.
A two-and-one-half day introduction to Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt, set for May 4-6, has been announced by Knickerbocker Tours.
The National Park Service and the Roosevelt-Vanderbilt Historical Association have announced a new lecture series focusing on Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt and Human Rights, beginning on Thursday, January 25th.
A new book by Geraldine Hawkins, Elliott and Eleanor Roosevelt: The Story of a Father and His Daughter in the Gilded Age (Black Dome Press Corp. 2017) takes a look into the lives and relationship between Elliot and Eleanor Roosevelt.
The Klyne Esopus Museum Will Present “The Wiltwyck School for Boys: Reclaiming Human Lives,” a lecture by Eve P. Smith, on April 16, at 4 pm at the Esopus Town Hall, in Ulster County, NY.