The Three Graces of Val-Kill
Eleanor Roosevelt, Marion Dickerman, and Nancy Cook in the Place They Made Their Own

The Three Graces of Val-Kill changes the way we think about Eleanor Roosevelt. Emily Wilson examines what she calls the most formative period in Roosevelts life, from 1922 to 1936, when she cultivated an intimate friendship with Marion Dickerman and Nancy Cook, who helped her build a cottage on the Val-Kill Creek in Hyde Park on the Roosevelt family land. In the early years, the three womenthe three graces, as Franklin Delano Roosevelt called themwere nearly inseparable and forged a female-centered community for each other, for family, and for New Yorks progressive women. Examining this network of close female friends gives readers a more comprehensive picture of the Roosevelts and Eleanors burgeoning independence in the years that marked Franklins rise to power in politics.Wilson takes care to show all the nuances and complexities of the womens relationship, which blended the political with the personal. Val-Kill was not only home to Eleanor Roosevelt but also a crucial part of how she became one of the most admired American political figures of the twentieth century. In Wilsons telling, she emerges out of the shadows of monumental histories and documentaries as a woman in search of herself.