A first lady and furniture.(Current and coming/Eleanor Roosevelt and "Val-Kill Industries: From Ideal to New Deal" at Stone Cottage, Hyde Park, New York)

The style widely known as colonial revival has recently been the subject of exhibitions, books, and other writings. Viewed as an outgrowth of the nostalgia for earlier times that swept the nation starting with the Centennial in 1876 and continuing into the 1920s, the most tangible reminders of its aesthetic are reproductions of antique furniture. Quite a different rationale was behind the founding of Val-Kill Industries, a furniture-making concern established with money provided by Eleanor Roosevelt and run by three of her friends, Nancy Cook, Marion Dickerman, and Caroline O'Day, on the Roosevelt family's large estate in Hyde Park, New York. An exhibition currently on view at the Stone Cottage, a building on the estate that overlooks Val-Kill Pond, brings together objects made by this firm. The exhibition is entitled Val-Kill Industries: From Ideal to New Deal and includes some sixty examples of furniture, pewter, and fabrics, all of which remain on view until November 2.

Val-Kill Industries was established chiefly as a social experiment. Both Franklin (soon to be the governor of New York State) and Eleanor Roosevelt sought to provide an incentive for young men to stay on their family farms. Young farmers were leaving in large numbers for higher ...