The lifelong home of America’s 32nd President Franklin Delano Roosevelt (1882-1945) in Hyde Park, Dutchess County, NY, was purchased by Roosevelt’s father James Roosevelt I in 1867 and named “Springwood.” [Read more…] about Heritage Spotlight: Franklin D. Roosevelt National Historic Site, Dutchess County
Val-Kill
Val-Kill Industries & The American Arts and Crafts Movement
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
Elliott Roosevelt’s Christmas Tree Sales At Val-Kill
“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.
This would be the beginning of a joint venture with her third child Elliott to turn a profit from the estate lands of Franklin Delano Roosevelt. [Read more…] about Elliott Roosevelt’s Christmas Tree Sales At Val-Kill