Eleanor Roosevelt National Historic Site - History

History

FDR encouraged Eleanor Roosevelt to develop this property as a place that she could develop some of her ideas for work with winter jobs for rural workers and women. She named the spot Val-Kill, loosely translated as waterfall-stream from the Dutch language common to the original settlers of the area. There are two buildings which are adjacent to Fallkill Creek. Stone Cottage, the original cottage which was home to Marion Dickerman and Nancy Cook, which they sold back to Eleanor in 1947 and a large two-story stuccoed building that housed Val-Kill Industries and which would become Eleanor's home after Franklin's death. It was the only residence that she personally owned.

Eleanor Roosevelt often hosted workshops for Encampment for Citizenship here.

In 1977, President Jimmy Carter signed a proclamation making it the Eleanor Roosevelt National Historic Site. In 1984 the Eleanor Roosevelt Center at Val-Kill negotiated an agreement with the National Park Service and made Stone Cottage its home. In 2008 the Eleanor Roosevelt Center at Val-Kill moved from Stone Cottage to a new facility at Val-Kill.

See also: Val-Kill Industries

Read more about this topic:  Eleanor Roosevelt National Historic Site

Famous quotes containing the word history:

    “The history of the world is the record of the weakness, frailty and death of public opinion.”
    —Samuel Butler (1835–1902)

    “He wrote in prison, not a History of the World, like Raleigh, but an American book which I think will live longer than that. I do not know of such words, uttered under such circumstances, and so copiously withal, in Roman or English or any history.”
    —Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)

    “I am ashamed to see what a shallow village tale our so-called History is. How many times must we say Rome, and Paris, and Constantinople! What does Rome know of rat and lizard? What are Olympiads and Consulates to these neighboring systems of being? Nay, what food or experience or succor have they for the Esquimaux seal-hunter, or the Kanaka in his canoe, for the fisherman, the stevedore, the porter?”
    —Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)