Historic Places: Val-Kill Cottage, Hyde Park, NY

Val-Kill cottage is a National Historic Site located on Route 9G in Hyde Park, NY. The cottage is famous for being the quiet getaway location for First Lady, Eleanor Roosevelt.

Eleanor Roosevelt's Val-Kill cottage was her escape from her life as a public figure. It's where she spent her time thinking of policy plans and strategizing how to set her goals in motion.

Tomorrow the League is hosting a tour and lunch at the historic site. We are delighted to have  Wylecia Wiggs Harris, LWVUS Executive Director, joining us for the lunch and tours. On Friday evening the Wallace Center will be hosting a Women in Politics Panel and Reception at the FDR Library in Hyde Park. For more on the lunch and reception see here.

If you are interested in visiting Val-Kill you can schedule a tour by visiting: https://www.nps.gov/nr/travel/presidents/eleanor_roosevelt_valkill.html 

Inez Milholland - Wednesday's Woman of the Week

Many are familiar with the iconic photo of Inez Milholland riding a white horse during a 1913 pre-inaugural suffrage parade in Washington, DC. What many don't know is that Milholland passed away unexpectedly of pernicious anemia at only 30 years old.

In her short 30 years of life Milholland accomplished more than anyone could have imagines. Milholland was born in Brooklyn, NY and attended Vassar College in Poughkeepsie. She interested in many social policy reforms including prison reform, rights for African Americans, suffrage, and world peace. Milholland was a member of the NAACP, the Women's Trade Union League, the Equality League of Self Supporting Women in New York (Women's Political Union), the National Child Labor Committee, and England's Fabian Society. She was also involved in the National American Woman Suffrage Association, which later branched into the grassroots radical National Woman's Party.

Milholland went on to become an attorney. One of her first assignments was to investigate Sing-Sing prison's deplorable conditions. In the early 1900's Milholland became actively engaged in the suffrage movement and began to travel the country attending suffrage parades wearing her iconic banner "Forward Into the Light".