It changed the trajectory of his life.

So much so, years later Greer picked up from Nashville, Tennessee, and moved to Plains. Since then, he has helped tell the story of Rosalynn and Jimmy Carter through his recently released documentary Plainspoken, his book More Than a President: Sundays with Jimmy Carter, and through his work in the community including organizing the upcoming Butterfly Daze, a two-day event on Aug. 15-16 celebrating Rosalynn Carter.

Our wide-ranging conversation covers his experience with the Carters while filming Plainspoken, insights about the Carters’ relationship from Greer’s book and how the people of Plains are getting on after the passing of Rosalynn in 2023 and Jimmy in 2024.

Thank you to everyone who tuned into our live video! If you missed the live conversation you can listen to it here.

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New legal action taken by Melania Trump against journalist and Donald Trump biographer Michael Wolff this week seeks reimbursement for her legal costs on the heels of a federal judge dismissing his anti-SLAPP lawsuit against the first lady.

On Tuesday, Mrs. Trump filed a motion for sanctions against Wolff despite Judge Mary Kay Vyskocil’s suggestion after she dismissed Wolff’s lawsuit that the two parties move on.

“I wonder if it’s in the best interest of the parties to continue litigating in this court,” Vyskocil said last month.

Attorneys representing the first lady pressed on in a 26-page filing asking that Mrs. Trump “be awarded her costs and reasonable attorney’s fees” after accusing Wolff of turning a “serious, looming defamation suit” that she threatened against Wolff into “a fundraising drive and political spectacle.”

Mrs. Trump and her attorneys in the filing said Wolff and his counsel “asserted a legally frivolous claim, propped it up with factual contentions that lacked any evidentiary support, and used them to run a political and commercial campaign. They should pay for Mrs. Trump’s fees and expenses incurred for the process they abused.”

Wolff, in a social media post earlier this week responded by calling Mrs. Trump’s argument a “perverse inversion.”

“I would not have had to raise money if they had not threatened to sue me for a billion dollars,” Wolff said. “The entire purpose of this lawsuit is to affirm my right and everybody’s right to say anything we want about people in the White House. In other words, this is a vivid example of Trump law.”

SLAPP, short for strategic lawsuits against public participation, have become a common tool for intimidating and silencing criticism through expensive, baseless legal proceedings, according to the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press. Anti-SLAPP laws are intended to prevent people from using courts, and potential threats of a lawsuit, to intimidate people who are exercising their First Amendment rights. Anti-SLAPP statutes can protect individual journalists from the financial threat of groundless defamation cases.

Wolff set up a GoFundMe page to raise money for his legal fees to fight Mrs. Trump. To date, he has raised $840,000. Wolff on the crowdfunding platform also said his goal is to use the subpoena power of a lawsuit to “make every effort to force husband and wife, under oath, to testify about their relationship with Epstein, or to hold them to account for why they won’t.”

Last October, Wolff sued Mrs. Trump after he claimed the first lady sent him a letter threatening to sue him for $1 billion and demanded he apologize for statements made about Melania and Donald Trump’s relationship with Jeffrey Epstein, an American financier and convicted sex offender who died by suicide in 2019 while in custody after being indicted for sex trafficking minors.

Wolff’s lawsuit against Mrs. Trump was filed to preemptively stop her from filing a defamation lawsuit against him. The judge dismissed Wolff’s lawsuit on May 22 saying, “That is not how the federal courts work.” The judge also criticized him for an “inappropriate level of tactical gamesmanship.”

In April, Mrs. Trump made an extraordinary statement from the White House denying links to Jeffrey Epstein and demanded that lies tying her to Epstein stop. She also urged Congress to hold a public hearing for survivors of Epstein’s crimes.

It has since not been completely clear what prompted Mrs. Trump to speak out at the time about Epstein, who had ties to elites around the world. But in her remarks she said, “Numerous fake images and statements about Epstein and me have been circulating on social media for years now. Be cautious what you believe. These images and stories are completely false.”

Wolff this week predicted Mrs. Trump and her legal team would lose her request for sanctions and that she would appeal to the Second Circuit and lose there, and then appeal to the Supreme Court.

“God knows what happens there,” he said, noting that the legal back and forth will add months to the legal calendar and countless costs.

“When I went into this, I knew that the major legal challenge would simply be to outlast them,” he said. “We actually might have the resources to, in fact, outlast them, which is the thing that most profoundly freaks them out.”

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The Weekly Wrap

The Weekly Wrap is a collection of headlines from the past week. Some publications have paywalls.

East Wing Magazine

Caroline Harrison ‘Followed Her Own Path’

Caroline Harrison is a lesser known American first lady. But she shouldn’t be, insists Nancy Kegan Smith, a first ladies expert and author of the In Pursuit essay published Thursday detailing the former first lady’s commitment to shaping an institution she knew others would inherit. Read more

USA Today

Melania Trump Among Big Names Not Attending White House Press Dinner

July 24, 2026 – First Lady Melania Trump, Vice President JD Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio won’t be attending the rescheduled White House Correspondents Association dinner on July 24. The original April 25 event was canceled after a gunman got perilously close to the ballroom at the Washington Hilton where President Donald Trump and top members of his administration and Congress were set to eat with thousands of reporters and guests. Read more

Cape Cod Times

Former First Lady Flew to Nantucket. What Airline Did to Make it Special

July 24, 2026 – When Dr. Jill Biden, the former first lady of the United States, took a flight to Nantucket last week, Cape Air chose a special aircraft for her trip. Read more

IMO with Michelle Obama & Craig Robinson

Live from SXSW London: Michelle & Craig on Career Changes, Purpose & Taking Risks

July 22, 2026 – Michelle and Craig take the stage at SXSW London for a special live episode of IMO—with one big twist: instead of interviewing a guest, they interview each other. Together, the siblings reflect on the career pivots that shaped their lives: from Michelle leaving corporate law to Craig walking away from Wall Street to coach basketball. They share lessons about embracing uncertainty, finding purpose over prestige, navigating family expectations, and why bravery is a skill built over time. View here

Women’s Wear Daily

Melania Trump Sports American Brands for World Cup Finals Between Spain and Argentina

July 19, 2026 – While many of the fans at Sunday’s FIFA World Cup final between Spain and Argentina at MetLife Stadium sported their favorite team’s colors, First Lady Melania Trump is showing off some American spirit.

Although the U.S. team’s bid ended in the quarterfinals, the first lady showed some loyalty for American brands at Sunday’s clash by sporting a white Gap T-shirt, a Thom Browne bomber jacket and Ralph Lauren trousers. The former model opted for oversized mirrored sunglasses and Roger Vivier flats instead of her signature stilettos. Read more

Americus Times-Recorder

Rosalynn Carter’s Alma Mater Georgia Southwestern Named Academic Home of National First Ladies Day Commission

July 1, 2026 – Georgia Southwestern State University (GSW) and the National First Ladies Day Commission (NFLDC) have entered a formal partnership that positions GSW as the Commission’s official academic home and help advance the study, preservation and celebration of America’s First Ladies. Read more

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Caroline Harrison is a lesser known American first lady. But she shouldn’t be, insists Nancy Kegan Smith, a first ladies expert and author of the In Pursuit essay published Thursday detailing the former first lady’s commitment to shaping an institution she knew others would inherit.

In fact, the White House of today exists in large part because of how Caroline Harrison helped shape the Executive Residence a few years before her death from tuberculosis there in October 1892. Switching on a light in the mansion, for instance, can be traced back to her extensive renovation of the White House that included installing electricity—even though, Smith says, those inside the White House were at first scared to turn it on.

Although Smith has written extensively about first ladies and is co-author of the recently updated book Remember the First Ladies: The Legacies of America’s History-Making Women, writing her essay Leaders Shape the Institutions Others Inherit was the first opportunity where she could study primary sources about Mrs. Harrison, the wife of Benjamin Harrison, the 23rd president of the United States. In Pursuit is a bi-partisan initiative created by the Washington, D.C.-based organization More Perfect aiming to share wisdom about leadership and democracy from former American presidents and selected first ladies.

The experience brought new information about the former first lady to light.

“It allowed me to do something I really love, which is original research and to find a lot of new things on her and shine a light, a deserving light on our semisesquicentennial on a first lady who hasn’t really been given her fair due in history,” Smith tells East Wing Magazine in a phone interview earlier this week.

Readers will learn from Smith’s essay that Mrs. Harrison recognized the need for updating the White House and envisioned something grand.

“She immediately became ‘concerned over the condition of the house,’ finding it in a state of terrible disrepair and noting in her diary ‘the rats have nearly taken the building so it has become necessary to get a man with Ferrets,’ to drive them out,” Smith writes. There’s more to that story in Smith’s essay.

While Mrs. Harrison dealt with the rats, she also lobbied hard for funds to renovate and enlarge the White House. Now more than 100 years later, Mrs. Harrison’s desire for an elaborate White House sounds coincidentally familiar as the Trump administration has undertaken several White House projects including the controversial White House ballroom proposed after the East Wing was demolished last October, a renovated Rose Garden patio and most recently a helicopter landing pad on the South Lawn.

Mrs. Harrison, however, submitted an architectural plan to Congress that preserved the Residence and proposed a $950,000 renovation that showed two large wings—the West Wing for office space and the East Wing for an art gallery, Smith writes. Her plan was rejected and instead she received $52,000 for restoration work.

“She really broke precedent in terms of first ladies publicly lobbying for things, and she lobbied for the White House,” Smith says, noting that when Grover and Frances Cleveland returned to the White House in his second non-consecutive term as president, they commented that they hardly recognized that it was the same White House.

Ultimately, Mrs. Harrison added more bathrooms, bedroom space and renovated the kitchen, floors and conservatory among other improvements. Her influence didn’t stop there.

Mrs. Harrison established the foundation for cataloging White House furnishings, something future First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy would build and expand on. Mrs. Harrison brought in other powerful Washington women for a White House china painting class and she, herself, was an artist and well known for orchid paintings. As first lady she was not a suffragist, but cared deeply about women’s advancement. She was a key component for fundraising in Washington D.C. for “The Women’s Medical School Fund Committee that approached Johns Hopkins University with a plan to raise $100,000 for their new school of medicine, provided that women were admitted on the same basis as men. The committee was successful,” Smith writes.

Mrs. Harrison was also named the first president of the National Society of the Daughters of the American Revolution.

“Women were so integral in the founding of this nation, but the Sons of the American Revolution said, ‘no,’” Smith notes, adding that the five women who founded the NSDAR came to First Lady Caroline Harrison to ask her to be the first president general.

In her research, Smith pointed out something notable about Mrs. Harrison upon her death at age 60: The New York Times wrote a lengthy and substantive obituary signaling how women and their achievements were given more recognition.

Smith hopes readers see what she saw in Caroline Harrison—a woman who had enough self-confidence that she didn’t let anyone box her in.

Read the essay

Updated July 24, 2026

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First Lady Melania Trump accompanied her husband President Donald Trump for the final match of the World Cup on Sunday at the New York/New Jersey Stadium in East Rutherford, New Jersey where Spain’s Lamine Yamar defeated Argentina’s Lionel Messi.

The first lady was photographed in the viewing box with world leaders, royalty and administration officials. She wore a tan nylon track jacket by Thom Browne with a red, white and blue striped collar, a white Gap T‑shirt, white Ralph Lauren belted trousers, and oversized aviator sunglasses.

Guests of Trump in his box included King Felipe VI and Queen Letizia of Spain and Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez, Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney, FIFA President Gianni Infantino, White House FIFA Taskforce executive director Andrew Giuliani, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin, Patriots owner Bob Kraft and Brian Kilmeade from Fox News, Politico reported.

After the match, the president walked onto the field to a sustained chorus of boos. He participated in the trophy ceremony where he handed the FIFA World Cup trophy to the Spanish captain, then remained on the medal platform long enough for the first series of photos.

The World Cup drew celebrities and music performances by Jennifer Hudson singing the National Anthem, and an 11-minute halftime show starring Shakira, Madonna, BTS, Justin Bieber, Coldplay’s Chris Martin, and Kermit and Miss Piggy from the Muppets.

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Calendar

July 22, 2026

Private Tour of the Val-Kill Furniture Exhibit at the Met Museum

The Eleanor Roosevelt Center at Val-Kill announces that the Metropolitan Museum of Art is opening an exhibit on Val-Kill Industries furniture from July 18, 2026–May 9, 2027, and the Center will take a few of its supporters on a private tour of the exhibit on July 22, 2026, at 10 a.m. local time. This tour will be led by the exhibit curator, Alyce Perry Englund, and Eleanor Roosevelt’s great-granddaughter, Anna Eleanor Fierst. There will also be lunch included after the tour at the American Wing Cafe inside the museum. The Met will be closed during this tour and there will not be access to the building beyond the American Wing. Tickets are a $100 donation. Read more

July 25, 2026

First Ladies for Kids: Eleanor Roosevelt

The National First Ladies Library & Museum presents a lively, age-appropriate introduction to Eleanor Roosevelt for children from 11 to 11:30 a.m. local time on July 25. The free event designed for children ages 7–10 brings history to life with fun, hands-on activities that inspire curiosity and creativity. There will be interactive activities that combine history, art, reading, spelling, and math; a complimentary take-home workbook for continued learning; and an opportunity to explore the historic Saxton-McKinley House with a National Park Service Ranger. Registration is requested for planning purposes. Read more

July 25, 2026

Suffragist Tea Party

The Clinton Presidential Library presents an in-person Suffragist Tea Party on Saturday, July 25, at 2 p.m. CT in commemoration of the ratification of the 19th Amendment.

This event will feature tea party snacks and beverages to recognize Arkansas’ unique and progressive place in the history of women’s fight for equality. Beginning in 1917, Arkansas allowed women to vote in primary elections. At the time, it was the only non-suffrage state to grant this right. On July 28, 1919, Arkansas became the 12th state to ratify the 19th Amendment, and the first Southern state to do so. This festive celebration is hosted as part of the Clinton Presidential Center’s America250 commemorations, honoring the nation’s history and recognizing important lessons to improve its future. Period attire is not required but encouraged. Read more

Aug. 4, 2026

White House History Live: An Inconvenient Widow: The Torment, Trial, and Triumph of Mary Todd Lincoln

The White House Historical Association presents White House History Live: An Inconvenient Widow: The Torment, Trial, and Triumph of Mary Todd Lincoln, at 5:30 p.m. ET on Aug. 4, 2026, as part of its YouTube and Facebook Live series.

Former Washington Post writer and columnist Lois Romano joins to discuss her new biography of Mary Todd Lincoln, one of the most misunderstood and vilified first ladies in American history. Romano’s research draws on hundreds of archives, letters, and memoirs to provide the most complete portrait—of not simply of an inconvenient widow, but of a brilliant and flawed woman, who possessed uncommon tenacity in the face of extraordinary adversity and personal torment, and helped launch one of America’s greatest presidents.

This virtual event will be live streamed on the White House Historical Association’s Facebook and YouTube pages starting at 5:30 pm ET on August 4. Read more

Aug. 7, 2026

Legacy Lecture: Mary Lincoln’s Photograph Album

The National First Ladies Library & Museum presents the virtual “Legacy Lecture: Mary Lincoln’s Photograph Album” with scholar Laura Keyes exploring a remarkable piece of personal history and what it reveals about Mary Lincoln and the Lincoln family.

Through the images she preserved, the album tells not only Mrs. Lincoln’s story but also the story of the Lincoln family during one of the most pivotal eras in American history. Read more

Aug. 12, 2026

Talk with a Curator

Go behind the scenes on Aug. 12, 2026, at 7 p.m. ET in a virtual program presented by the National First Ladies Library & Museum for a rare opportunity to learn how history is researched, cared for, and shared—straight from the curators who make it happen. Read more

Aug. 15-16, 2026

5th Annual Butterfly Daze

The Friends of Jimmy Carter presents the 5th Annual Butterfly Daze Weekend from Aug. 15-16, 2026 in Plains, Georgia, celebrating the “First Lady from Plains,” Rosalynn Carter. The two-day event will include the Rosalynn Carter Memorial Food Distribution; Apartment 9A tours, where the Carters first lived in Plains; a Butterfly Garden hands-on experience; lunch with Lincoln; Cooking with the First Ladies Man and Rosalynn’s family; Presidential Descendants VIP Reception; Give ‘Em Hell Harry play with Harry Truman grandson Clifton Truman Daniel; “Rosalynn” Sunday community-wide service and fellowship taught by Carter family member Courtney Wall; and a wreath laying ceremony at the Carter Gardens. Read more

Aug. 22, 2026

History talk: The Wedding of Ulysses and Julia Grant

On a hot August day in 1848, Ulysses S. Grant and Julia Dent were married at the Dent family’s home in downtown St. Louis, beginning a partnership that would withstand war, separation, financial hardship, and public life. This free program to be held from 10 to 11 a.m. local time explores the Grants’ courtship and wedding, examining the experiences and influences that brought them together. Through letters, photographs, and historical accounts, David Newmann, the Program Manager for Interpretation, Education, and Volunteers at Ste. Genevieve National Historical Park, will explore the story behind the Grants’ wedding day and the bond that endured through decades of personal and national change. Read more

Sept. 8-10, 2026

Presidential Sites Summit

The White House Historical Association will host the Presidential Sites Summit at the historic Mayflower Hotel in Washington, D.C. on September 8-10, 2026.

This convening will bring together leaders and staff from presidential sites nationwide, including birthplaces, childhood homes, libraries, museums and alma maters—to reflect on the America 250 semi-quincentennial celebrations and accomplishments and look to the future. The program emphasizes lessons learned, future collaborations, and strategies for sustaining relevance in a dynamic cultural landscape. Read more

Updated July 20, 2026

Send calendar items, press releases and announcements to jtaylor@eastwingmagazine.com.

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Florence Kling Harding, an American first lady mostly cast in the shadows of her husband’s political scandals, knew about her husband’s infidelity, encouraged him to broaden his political horizons by stepping into national politics and laid the groundwork for future first ladies taking up causes and initiatives.

She was also a feminist, historian and biographer Katherine A. S. Sibley tells Alan Lowe, host of the podcast American FLOTUS, in the latest episode that aired on Thursday.

Sibley, author of First Lady Florence Harding: Behind the Tragedy and Controversy, in their discussion describes Florence Harding before meeting her husband and future president of the United States as a resourceful, single, working mother who supported herself.

The podcast discussion follows Florence Harding’s remarkable life from childhood to the White House until her husband’s untimely yet astrologically predicted death. Sibley also explains how the narrative of Florence Harding’s legacy was soured by biographers who wrote blatant lies about her, including one that falsely accused her after her death of poisoning her husband.

“Few women in American history have been the subject of more sustained scorn and criticism than Florence Kling Harding,” Lewis L. Gould writes in the foreword of Sibley’s biography of Florence Harding, which is part of the Modern First Ladies book series.

It wouldn’t be until Sibley’s holistic biography of the first lady published in 2009 that Mrs. Harding’s contributions to the role were fully spotlighted. She understood that the role of first lady in the White House had a platform, Sibley says during the podcast, and that she “could do something with her power.”

During the short-lived Harding administration, Florence Harding advocated for veterans, encouraged women to get involved in the political sphere, spearheaded the first federal prison for women, fought for animal protections and understood how to use the media of her time period.

Listen to the full podcast episode

American FLOTUS is a partnership of the First Ladies Association for Research and Education (FLARE) and American POTUS. The podcast presents experts drawn from the many members of FLARE sharing with listeners their expertise and their experiences.

East Wing Magazine is a member of FLARE.

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The Weekly Wrap

The Weekly Wrap is a collection of headlines from the past week. Some publications have paywalls.

East Wing Magazine

How I Discovered the Real Eleanor Roosevelt Through Her Photographs at Val-Kill

July 17, 2026 – A fresh blanket of snow covered the grounds of Val-Kill, Eleanor Roosevelt’s retreat in Hyde Park, New York. The site was closed to visitors for the winter, and the only sounds were the wind moving through the bare trees and the occasional creak of the old house. Alone inside the cottage, I carried a large brown binder filled with black-and-white photographs from room to room, comparing images taken shortly after Eleanor’s death in 1962 with the walls around me. Those images offered clues to the people and memories the longest serving former first lady and activist chose to surround herself with during the final years of her life. Read more

Inc.

Michelle Obama Shared a Lesson About Power That Every Founder Needs to Hear

July 17, 2026 – At the opening night of the Essence Festival of Culture, Michelle Obama joined Keke Palmer for a live taping of her IMO podcast. The conversation centered on her new book and the messages her wardrobe has sent throughout her career. But one exchange about power, timing, and earning influence landed as a masterclass for founders. Read more

The Grio

Michelle Obama Shows Off Her Dance Moves to ‘Wobble’ at Martha’s Vineyard Birthday Party

July 17, 2026 – Michelle Obama did not need a microphone to command the room on Martha’s Vineyard. The former first lady stepped into a group line dance at Nomans and moved through V.I.C.’s “Wobble” as guests danced beside her. Read more

The Hill

Jill Biden Accuses Press of Double Standard in Coverage of Husband and Trump

July 17, 2026 – Former First Lady Jill Biden accused the media of applying a “double standard” in its coverage of her husband, former President Biden, when compared with President Trump. Read more

Cowgirl Magazine

The Famous First Ladies Who Ruled the White House From the Saddle

July 17, 2026 – Long before they captured the heart of the nation, several American first ladies shared a deeper bond with the open trail. While history books often focus on their political influence, a handful of these iconic women were serious, lifelong equestrians. Read more

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The Look, an IMO Limited Series

The Look Live from Essence Fest: Keke Palmer & Michelle Talk Style, Confidence & Purpose

July 15, 2026 – Michelle Obama sits down with Keke Palmer live at Essence Festival for an unforgettable conversation about style, identity, purpose, and the power of defining yourself on your own terms. View here

CNN

Vance: Reaction to False Michelle Obama Insult at White House UFC Fight Was ‘Totally Disproportionate’

July 15, 2026 – Vice President JD Vance said in a podcast episode that aired Wednesday that the backlash to a UFC fighter’s false and offensive remark about former first lady Michelle Obama was “totally disproportionate” to the comment itself. Read more

Oklahoma Voice

Oklahoma Ends ‘Orphan Tax’ Amid Pressure from the Trump Administration

July 15, 2026 – Oklahoma’s governor said Wednesday that the state will no longer divert Social Security survivor benefits from children in the state’s foster care system. In December, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services called on states to end the practice of paying for foster care using the “orphan tax.” First Lady Melania Trump suggested that states place the benefits in “Fostering the Future Accounts,” a new initiative designed to help foster children build wealth. Read more

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A fresh blanket of snow covered the grounds of Val-Kill, Eleanor Roosevelt’s retreat in Hyde Park, New York. The site was closed to visitors for the winter, and the only sounds were the wind moving through the bare trees and the occasional creak of the old house. Alone inside the cottage, I carried a large brown binder filled with black-and-white photographs from room to room, comparing images taken shortly after Eleanor’s death in 1962 with the walls around me. Those images offered clues to the people and memories the longest serving former first lady and activist chose to surround herself with during the final years of her life.

At the time, I was at the beginning of my career as a historian, yet the Roosevelts had already been part of my life for several years. I started researching Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt at the age of 16, interned at Franklin D. Roosevelt’s Little White House in Warm Springs, Georgia at 17, and then, three years later, I worked in both the archives and museum at the Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library. The National Park Service, aware of my interest in preserving the Roosevelt legacy, asked me to help restore the photographs that once hung on the walls throughout Val-Kill. I immediately said yes.

What I did not realize was that this project would be unlike any research I had undertaken before. Restoration requires historians to reconstruct a moment in time using pieces that have survived the decades. Some photographs were in their original locations, while others had vanished. Many had been scattered among family members, archives, collections, and even total strangers. My task was to identify them, locate them when possible, and return them to the places where Eleanor had chosen to display them.

When I began the project, I thought I knew Eleanor fairly well. Yet that was not the Eleanor I came to know through this project. What surprised me most was not who appeared on her walls, but what their presence revealed. The photographs uncovered a woman deeply devoted to family, fiercely loyal to friends, and profoundly shaped by the relationships that defined her life.

The walls of Val-Kill were arranged not to showcase accomplishments—but to preserve memories. In restoring them, I discovered an Eleanor Roosevelt who felt more human, more personal, and more complex than the historical icon I thought I already knew.

Why Val-Kill mattered

Val-Kill was Eleanor’s sanctuary and, in many ways, the one place she truly considered her own. Established in 1924 by her husband Franklin D. Roosevelt for Eleanor and two of her close friends, Marion Dickerman and Nancy Cook, the property became a refuge from the conventions that often accompanied her public life. While Springwood, the Roosevelt family’s estate in Hyde Park, was associated with Franklin Roosevelt and his mother, Sara Delano Roosevelt, Eleanor viewed Val-Kill as home. More than any other place, it reflected the life she built for herself, independent of both the White House and Springwood.

During Franklin Roosevelt’s ‘s lifetime, Eleanor had one standing rule: if he was in Hyde Park, whether as governor or president, she would stay with him at Springwood. When he was away in Albany or Washington, however, Val-Kill was where she preferred to be.

The cottage Eleanor eventually made her home began as Val-Kill Industries, a furniture-making enterprise founded by her, Marion, and Nancy to provide employment for Hudson Valley craftspeople. Although the business closed during the Great Depression, furniture made at Val-Kill remained throughout the cottage and in several other Roosevelt homes. The Stone Cottage, the first building visitors see when entering the property, initially served as the home of the three friends.

Over time, the living arrangements at Val-Kill evolved. Marion and Nancy eventually left the property, and after Franklin Roosevelt’s death in 1945, Eleanor made the Val-Kill Cottage her permanent residence. The Stone Cottage became home to her youngest son, John Aspinwall Roosevelt, his wife Anne, and their four children. For the remainder of her life, Val-Kill remained the place where Eleanor’s personal and public worlds came together. Family and friends gathered alongside distinguished visitors ranging from the Queen Mother and John F. Kennedy to neighbors and visitors from all walks of life.

After his mother’s death in 1962, John Roosevelt remained on the property for several years. Following his remarriage, he and his second wife decided to leave Hyde Park and settle permanently in New York City. Before doing so, they made the controversial decision to auction off many of his and Eleanor’s personal belongings. The sale upset many members of the Roosevelt family, several of whom attended the auction to purchase items that had belonged to their grandmother.

John sold the property to a group of New York physicians, and for years, Val-Kill’s future remained uncertain. Proposals for commercial development alarmed local residents, who organized preservation efforts that ultimately led to the creation of the Eleanor Roosevelt National Historic Site in 1977. Seven years later, in 1984, the nonprofit Eleanor Roosevelt Center entered into an agreement with the National Park Service to ensure the property’s preservation and public accessibility.

In the years following Eleanor’s death, and after the auction, many of the personal items that had filled Val-Kill, including her personal photographs, became scattered. Some found their way into the archives of the FDR Presidential Library, others were stored in National Park Service collections nearby, a number were returned to family members, while the whereabouts of others remained a mystery.

When Val-Kill opened to the public in 1984, the National Park Service did the best it could with the materials they had available. Photographs of Roosevelt family members and friends were displayed throughout the house, but historical accuracy and original placement were not the primary goals. Yet where Eleanor chose to display a photograph was itself part of the story. A portrait beside her bed carried a different significance than one hanging in a hallway. It was clear that reconstructing what had actually hung on the walls during Eleanor’s lifetime would require a different approach. More than 30 years later, that was where I came in.

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Piecing Together Eleanor’s World

At the beginning, the research was a challenge because all I had was the heavy brown binder filled with black-and-white photographs of Val-Kill taken by an archivist named William Stickle from the FDR Presidential Library. He had gone to Val-Kill shortly after Eleanor’s death in November 1962 to photograph the cottage.

In a small corner office at the nearby Vanderbilt Mansion National Historic Site, I spent weeks bent over that binder with a magnifying glass, studying each image and trying to identify the pictures hanging on the walls. It was painstaking work, and it felt like solving a puzzle just one piece at a time. I was delighted when our curator, Frank Futral, located digital copies of the archival photographs for me to study on a computer, allowing me to zoom in and out and examine details that had been nearly impossible to see before, and compare images side by side.

I would then return with the binder to Val-Kill and compare the photographs hanging on the walls in 1962 to what visitors were seeing now. Some photographs remained in their proper places, while others had disappeared over the years, and it was my job to find them. Because I was already familiar with so many members of the Roosevelt, Hall, and Delano families, as well as Eleanor’s closest friends and associates, identifying the subjects in many of the missing photographs was often the easy part. The real challenge was tracking them down.

The next step took me into the archives of the FDR Presidential Library, where carts filled with photographs from Val-Kill were rolled out for me to examine and compare with the Stickle Photos. Some of the missing images were located there, while others still needed to be found. From there, the search continued at a National Park Service warehouse in Hyde Park, where I repeated the same process, sifting through photographs and records in hopes of finding more matches.

At the same time, I began reaching out to members of the Roosevelt family and longtime family friends. Some were able to identify photographs that had confounded me, while others provided leads on how to obtain copies of images that neither the FDR Presidential Library nor the National Park Service possessed. What began as an archival project soon became a collaborative effort involving me, archivists, park staff, family members, and friends, all working toward the same goal.

Yet the research itself was only part of the experience. Being at Val-Kill when it was closed for the winter was almost magical. There were no visitors, no tour groups, and no noise. In those moments, it was easy to imagine Eleanor sitting in her office answering her mail, sometimes well past midnight, or the Roosevelt grandchildren bursting through the door after a summer swim. I could picture the famous Christmas closet upstairs overflowing with gifts. It was then that I realized this project was really about restoring a moment in time—not simply returning photographs to walls. Restoring the photographs meant restoring the story Eleanor wanted visitors to encounter when they walked through her home.

I thought about the visitors who would walk through Val-Kill’s doors in the years ahead, many of whom might know very little about Eleanor. Perhaps one of them would stop and notice a photograph of a woman holding a tennis racket hanging in the living room and wonder who she was. That would lead them to discover that the woman was Martha Gellhorn, the celebrated war correspondent and journalist, as well as the one-time wife of Ernest Hemingway. Hers was just one of many fascinating stories represented by the images that Eleanor surrounded herself with.

What the photographs revealed

As the restoration progressed, I began to see Eleanor’s home as she had intended it to be seen. The photographs reflected not a collection of accomplishments, but a life shaped by family, friendship, and memory.

Perhaps nowhere was that more evident than in the presence of photographs of her husband throughout the cottage. So much has been written about their relationship, much of it incorrect or sensationalized, yet one thing became clear through the images: even years after Franklin Roosevelt’s death—despite all that had passed—his memory remained deeply important to Eleanor. Not only as a husband, but also as a leader she genuinely admired. Portraits of him occupied a prominent place throughout Val-Kill. For example, each morning when Eleanor awoke, one of the first things she saw was the large portrait painted by artist Frank O. Salisbury. The portrait, a copy personally inscribed and presented to Eleanor by Salisbury, was the former president’s favorite likeness of himself and later became his official White House portrait.

Family occupied an equally important place, and several members of the Roosevelt family proved invaluable to the project. Elliott “Tony” Roosevelt, Jr., one of Eleanor’s grandsons, and his wife, JoAnne, generously shared copies of wedding photographs that had hung in Eleanor’s bedroom. His sister, Chandler Roosevelt Lindsley, did the same, and she and I enjoyed several conversations throughout the process.

One of my favorite conversations was with Eleanor “Ellie” Seagraves, the eldest Roosevelt grandchild and the daughter of Anna Roosevelt. Ellie and her brother Curtis, known to the public as “Sistie” and “Buzz,” spent much of their childhood at the White House with their grandparents. Ellie fondly remembered her grandmother’s beloved horse, Dot, which she often rode around Washington. She also recalled a special playground Eleanor had created for the grandchildren on the White House grounds. According to Ellie, both her mother and grandmother grew increasingly frustrated when curious passersby would stop to watch the children play as though they were part of an exhibit. Eventually, additional shrubbery was planted to provide them with more privacy.

Through her grandchildren, I discovered Eleanor the grandmother, a woman whose greatest joy often came not from politics or world affairs, but from her family.

Among the most moving objects in Eleanor’s bedroom was a small watercolor portrait by Sonia Routchine of the first Franklin D. Roosevelt, Jr., who died from influenza in 1909 before he was eight months old. Nearby were two versions of the same photograph showing the baby with his nurse at the Roosevelt family’s home on Campobello Island. In 1914, the Roosevelts welcomed another son and gave him the same name, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Jr. He would live until 1988, but the presence of these keepsakes shows that Eleanor never forgot the child she lost.

Yet her world extended far beyond Hyde Park. Throughout the house were reminders that she was not only a beloved mother and grandmother, but one of the most respected women in the world. Inscribed photographs bearing thoughtful messages from figures such as French President Vincent Auriol and Canadian Prime Minister William Lyon Mackenzie King showcase the extraordinary circles in which she moved.

If family formed the center of Eleanor’s world, friendship was another pillar of it. The walls of Val-Kill featured photographs of many of the women who shaped her life. There were images of her mother, Anna Hall Roosevelt, who died when Eleanor was just 8 years old, as well as her mother-in-law, Sara Delano Roosevelt, and other relatives. Alongside them were photographs of aviation pioneer Amelia Earhart, her beloved Allenswood headmistress Marie Souvestre, pioneering journalist Lorena Hickok, and her longtime friend Isabella Greenway, the first woman elected to Congress from Arizona.

One of the most touching photographs in the office was that of Malvina “Tommy” Thompson. Tommy served as Eleanor’s secretary for three decades, but she was far more than an employee. She became part of the Roosevelt family and was deeply loved by Eleanor’s children and grandchildren. When Tommy died in 1953, Eleanor was devastated. Tommy’s photograph in what was once her wing of the cottage reflects her importance in helping sustain Eleanor’s demanding public life for decades.

I was particularly pleased to discover a photograph in Eleanor’s bedroom of Marguerite “Missy” LeHand, Franklin Roosevelt’s secretary for more than 20 years. The photograph was especially meaningful because I was simultaneously assisting author Kathryn Smith with research for The Gatekeeper, her enlightening biography of Missy LeHand. Photographs of Missy and Tommy speak volumes about the affection and loyalty that existed between the Roosevelts and those in their inner circle, revealing that they were viewed as members of the family.

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More than the first lady of the world

By the time the project was nearing completion, I had spent countless hours studying the people and places Eleanor chose to surround herself with. In doing so, I began to understand her in a way that wasn’t possible from years of reading books and archival documents.

Despite the barriers she broke and the achievements that made her one of the most influential women of the 20th century, Eleanor was more traditional than I had expected. That impression was reinforced not only by the photographs she chose to display, but also by the conversations I had with her grandchildren.

Reminders of Eleanor’s public life were certainly present. Photographs of close friends and activists such as Joe and Trude Lash reflected her commitment to the causes she championed, while images connected to organizations such as the International Student Service showed her enduring interest in young people and international events. During World War II, the organization worked to assist students whose lives and educations had been disrupted by war and the rise of fascism, a cause Eleanor strongly supported. Even so, those aspects of her life did not dominate the walls of Val-Kill.

Instead, places of honor were reserved for family and personal memories. Wedding photographs, portraits of grandchildren, images of Franklin Roosvelt, and treasured keepsakes appeared again and again throughout the cottage.

In the end, I realized Eleanor was not as different from the rest of us as I had once imagined. The woman who influenced global conversations and traveled the world also cherished family traditions and chose to surround herself with reminders of the people she loved.

The collection revealed a woman who was both extraordinary and deeply human. More than anything else, they showed that what mattered most to Eleanor was not power, prestige, or public acclaim. It was the people who shaped her life.

Restoring memories, not just photographs

Over the course of nearly a year and a half, the curatorial team and I worked to bring this project to life. Identifying the missing photographs was only the beginning. Once they were located, copies had to be made, frames ordered, and the images returned to their proper places throughout the house. At the same time, I researched and wrote captions for both the existing and newly restored photographs, many of which can now be found on the National Park Service’s Eleanor’s Pictures website.

In the end, I realized we were not simply restoring photographs to walls. We were restoring the memories Eleanor chose to preserve.

Naturally, there were a few photographs we could not identify or return to their original locations. Perhaps someday they will be. That is the beauty of historic preservation. It is never truly finished. Each generation brings new questions, new discoveries, and new ways of understanding the past. There are still mysteries surrounding some of the photographs that hang on the walls today. Who is this person? What is the story behind this image? For now, some questions remain unanswered.

This project will always remain one of the highlights of my career. Knowing that my work, along with the efforts of superb colleagues, will continue to be seen by visitors for years to come is deeply gratifying. More importantly, the experience only deepened my respect for Eleanor.

As the United States celebrates its 250th anniversary, historic sites dedicated to first ladies and other influential women may be an afterthought for some. Yet preserving these places and sharing their stories remains essential. They remind us that history is shaped not only by presidents and political movements—but also by relationships, families, friendships, and the lives people build behind the scenes.

When visitors walk through Val-Kill today, they encounter more than Eleanor’s home. Through the photographs lining its walls, they encounter a woman who loved deeply, remained loyal to those around her, and never forgot the people who shaped her life. I hope this project helps future generations meet not only the Eleanor Roosevelt of the history books, but the woman who lived at Val-Kill.

New episodes of season four of Holley Snaith’s Say It With History podcast air on Fridays. On Friday, July 31, Snaith will discuss Missy LeHand with author Kathryn Smith of “The Gatekeeper.” To learn more about about Eleanor Roosevelt through her photographs, please visit: Eleanor’s Pictures.

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