In
1922, Nancy Cook called ER
to ask her to chair a fund-raising luncheon of the Women's
Division of the New York Democratic Committee. ER accepted
the invitation, and after working with Cook, invited her
to Hyde Park. Cook then introduced ER to her great friend
Marion Dickerman, who
would soon become Cook's life partner. The three women quickly
became inseparable, sharing political and social friendships.
FDR
found them good company, smart and politically useful. Soon
Cook and Dickerman became frequent visitors to the Roosevelt
Hyde Park estate where, in 1925 the three friends, with
FDR's active support and assistance, built Stone
Cottage at Val-Kill,
two miles from Springwood, the Roosevelt family home.
Once the home was completed, Cook, a master woodworker
and craftsman, decided to make the furniture for the cottage.
Soon the women decided to launch Val-Kill Industries, as
ER later recalled in her autobiography, "primarily to
carry out a theory" she and FDR shared "about establishing
industries in agricultural counties to give men and boys
a means of
earning money in winter" and having "something interesting
to do."(1) All parties
hoped the factory, a nonprofit entity, would not only
provide
jobs for rural workers who were unemployed or underemployed,
but would also provide rural youth training for new kinds
of work. In 1926, the women built a larger building near
Stone Cottage and the following year Val-Kill Industries
began selling colonial-style furniture reproductions produced
by Hyde Park workers and designed by Cook. Later, they
would
expand the business to include pewter (Val-Kill Forge)
and weavings.
ER,
who had the largest investment, marketed the furniture by
holding showings at New York City and Hyde Park homes. In
addition to ER's friends, project clients included Vassar
College and Sloane's Department Store. Soon the press praised
Val-Kill Industries as a "Feminine Industrial Success" and
the project increased its work force from six to thirty.
While it was never a financial success, Val-Kill Industries
survived the stock market crash of 1929. ER continued to
support the project after FDR was elected governor; however,
after nine years, the factory closed when what Blanche Wiesen
Cook calls a "frayed bond" developed in ER's relationship
with Nancy Cook and Marion Dickerman. ER then had the factory
building remodeled and converted into apartments for herself
and guests.
Notes:
- Eleanor Roosevelt, This
I Remember ( New York: Harper & Brothers, 1949),
33-34.
Sources:
Black, Allida M. Casting Her Own Shadow: Eleanor
Roosevelt and the Shaping of Postwar Liberalism.
New York: Columbia University Press, 1996, 16.
Cook, Blanche Wiesen. Eleanor Roosevelt, Volume
One, 1884-1933. New York: Viking Press, 1992,
323-5, 420.
Cook, Blanche Wiesen. Eleanor Roosevelt, Volume
Two, 1933-1938. New York: Viking Press, 1993,
360-1.
Roosevelt, Eleanor. This I Remember. New York:
Harper & Brothers, 1949, 33-34.