Val-Kill Industries

Eleanor Roosevelt established Val-Kill Industries in 1927 with Nancy Cook, Marion Dickerman, and Caroline O'Day, three friends she met through her activities in the Women's Division of the New York State Democratic Party.

Eleanor and her business partners financed the construction of a small factory to provide supplemental income for local farming families who would make furniture, pewter, and homespun cloth using traditional craft methods.

Nancy Cook, a trained artisan and teacher, designed most of the furniture and managed the factory which employed anywhere from three to eight men during its decade-long operation.

Val-Kill Industries never became the subsistence program that Eleanor and her friends imagined, but it did pave the way for larger New Deal initiatives during FDR's presidential administration.

Nancy's failing health and pressures from the Great Depression compelled the women to dissolve the partnership in 1938, at which time Eleanor Roosevelt converted the shop buildings into a cottage that eventually became her permanent residence after FDR died in 1945.