-
https://clinton.presidentiallibraries.us/files/original/255c20f53ebcb1b3b95ce9e7688f6195.pdf
4feccb8373afa3a56d93389936172b92
PDF Text
Text
.:.,
"
,.·r.
',.'
.. ".
".,: ."
,--'_.
'.,."
.:.',"1"
..:!
�I
REMARKS BY FIRST LApY IDLLARY RODHAM CLINTON
VISIT: TO V AL KILL
HYDE PARK, NEW YORK
ruNE 17, 2000
Thank you so much, Anne. I have counted among my many blessings in the last eight
years getting to know Anne Roosevelt, andievery time I have had the pleasure of being with her,
. I feel even more grateful to her and,her family, and believe that her grandmother lives on in
Anne's very strong, gentle, intelligent presdnce. I also want to thank the Mid-Hudson Boys
Choir for their wonderful music, and for being pmi of this ceremony today, and to Sarah Olson
for your exemplary leadership of th\s site, ~nd to all of your staff who -- 1 remember I was here
five years ago -- have such a love for this place that you and they convey, and I thank you for
that.
I
I also want to thank Professor Allid~ Black for her detelmination, her ~ingle-mindedness
to both bring about and keep Eleanor Roosevelt's memory and legacy alive, and I think you just
got a taste of her enthusiasm for this task. When we were talking together in the house before
coming out, she toldme that she is on a mission to find every piece of paper that Mrs. Roosevelt
ever sent to anyone, plus every speech she ever made. And she's finding them all over the
world, in places as far-flung as South Afiicil and Vietnam, and she tolp me something I'd never
heard anywhere before, which is thatEleanbr Roosevelt had quite an m"gument with Winston
Churchill over the fU,ture ofIndochina. No}v that is something I would have liked to have been
present for and to have seen for myself. Sq, thank you so much Allida. I also want to thank the
members of the Hyde Park City Council wpo m"e here with us, other elected officials who have
come and especially the Save America's Treasures Committee, who are represented here in the
audience.
Five years ago I came to Val-Kill t6 receive the Eleanor Roosevelt Val-Kill Medal. It
was a wonderful aftemoon in a tent -- somewhat bigger than this ,- on the grounds with so many
people who had so many connections with,this place and with Mrs. Roosevelt. I toured the
cottage then -- and again briefly today -- where I could see the books that she read, the radio she
listened to, the chair that she sat in after diimer as she talked with her many guests. Anne
reminded all of us that it really was an extended family here. There would be people from
I
literally every comer of the world who would come for dinner or who were put up in one of the
guest rooms, who were pmi of the real atmosphere that was created here around Mrs. Roosevelt.
We also went out on the sleeping porch, which was one of her favolite places in the world, and
for those who have read some of her columns ()ver the years, they often take place or refer to her
time on the sleeping porch.
This beautiful setting -- which can be remembered personally by someone like Anne
who washere as a child, or could be remem.bered by perhaps some of you in the audience who
are here as guests or in some other capacity -- is really a fitting monument to a woman who was
Im"ger than life but approachable by all. Mrs. Roosevelt said many memorable things on great
subjects, but in some ways I appreciate, m:aybe more than anything else, the way that she kept
bringing everything she did in the world, a1l of the places she went, all of her many
�accomplishments, back home, to the place where all of us can relate to her and feel comfortabl e
around her ..
She said: ."The greatest thing I have :leamed is how good it is to come home again." As 1
recall, this became her home about the time,of age that I am now: fifty-two, I believe, is when
she finally had a home of her own. After the very difficult childhood, after living in homes that
were largely the homes created by and managed by her mother-in-law, after living in the White
House -- which is a wonderful place to live-- she finally came home to her own home, here in
Val-Kill. And this is where she entertained and greeted leaders from Winston Churchill to Walter
Reuther, to American activists like Mary M~Cleod Bethune, to her grandchildren. She also,
every year, invited the boys from the nearbYWiltwyck School for Boys to come for hotdogs and
potato salad and a reading of Kipling's story Rikki Tikki Tavi on the lawn.
.
.
I
Sometimes there were s'o many gues:ts, I am told, that they literally anived by the
busload. Perhaps a group of college students, or guests from foreign countries who heard that
this is where Mrs. Roosevelt lived, and just ;turned off the road and came up to find it and tofind
her. She would always take them in.
There are wondelful stories from V~l-Kill and even from the White House - one of my
favolites that I tell the staff there all the time - is how she one time invited somebody she met
on .the street, a man who was down on his IJck during the Depression, into the White House,
invited him to dinner, then invited him to sp:end the night,' only then realized that all the rooms
were filled, only after she'd opened all ofth~m to find out if someone was asleep, and then just·
put up a cot in a comer somewhere so that hie too could spend the night.
Mrs. Roosevelt would have loved the fact that we have a lot of students here today, from
Poughkeepsie, from Hyde Park, the Girls' Leadership Workshop, sponsored by the Eleanor
Roosevelt Center here. (applause) And I th.ink .that she would be delighted to know that the
secretary for the last ten years of her life, M~ureen COlT, is here. Maureen, where's Maureen?
. .
There she is. (applause).
And many of you recall thatthis user to be a furniture factory. And it was set up -- one
of the very first women-started, women-organized, women-managed factmies in the country -- to
try to help fatmers here in Dutchess County who had fallen'on hard times during the Depression
to have another way of making a living. An~d so the factory ran for about ten years and took a lot
of people in. In fact, this is a table that is from the Val-Kill factory, and·there is a gentleman
.
I
here in the audience who worked as a finisher at Val-Kill Industries, Han)' Johannesen, and I
would like Mr. Johannesen to stand. (applause) We also have Stella Hirschom, another of
,
Eleanor Roosevelt's biographers, and Stella~ where is Stella, is Stella here? (applause) And I
would like all the members of the Save AriHhica's Treasures Committee who are here today to
.'
.
please stand. (applause)
.
!
This is my fOltieth Save America's Treasure's visit in the last two years. As many of you
may know, this is a pu.blic-private partnershIp that we,statted back in ] 998 as a way of
commemorating the millennium by turning our attention simultaneously to our past and honming
the past as well as looking toward the future and·imagining a better future. ADd when we began
�\
. thinking about honoring th~past, we realized 'there were so many"places, documents, collections
around our country that just weren't being given the public visibility and attention that they
needed in terms of the contributions that th~y really illustrated to what we wei"e as Americans. as
we began this new century. And s'o the'White House Millennium Council was created, and it's
been a real joy for us. When thePresident ~d I c;reated it, we asked a wonderful preservationist'
and appreciator of the arts to be the chair of;it within the White House, and Ell~n, you're here,
and I'd like to ask El1en Lovell to stand bec~use she.'s been the real driving force behind this.
We.. partnered with the National Tru~t for Historic Preservation and we have litera~ly
traveled the country. Two years ago we wej"e on a bus tour through, well staJting at the
Smithsonian, going through Maryland and New Jersey and to the Berkshires in Massachusetts,
over into New York, and ending up at Seneca Falls, We have been highlighting and raising
money to preserve sights such as Louis ~strong's.aJ"chives, to the Fell)' Building on Ellis.
Island, from the Cliff Dwellings at MesaVerde, to the African Meeting House in Boston. And
today Val-Kill Cottage joins this list ofend~ngered treasures that adds to·our story as a nation.
i' {
Because when we preserve Val-Klll( we preserve; in many way~, a bilthplace for the
modem human rights movement. It was hete that the Val-Kill Industries operated, an early
recognition that all of us, men and women, need work, usefu.1 work, to do; N9t only to.make a
living, but to feel as though we are making ~ contlibution. And for many of the people that came
through this factory, this was a lifesaver. I(was here that Mrs. Roosevelt wrote her famous
column,':My Day," and reflected on the ch*lleng.es facing the world anq our countl)" and wrote
about evel)'thing from racismio war, from child labor to the need for a national health plan.
Here she mediated political and labor disputes, and educated students of all ages about .
.
.
I.
democracy. It was also here that she drafte~ large portions of the Universal DeclaJ"ation of
Human Rights, passed by the United Nations, one of her greatest legacies to our world. So when
we preserve Val-Kill, we are not just preserVing the fumiture .andthe house and the grounds, we
aJ"e really preserving those memories, thoseicontributions, You know, this nation has lots of
monuments to presidents and generals, b.ut few to women wh.o ma<:ie their marks with their own
brand of public service, and I am very grateful this is one of them. (applause)
,
,
I think Eleanor Roosevelt would ha~~ loved being'on our bus trip, We visited Haniet
Tubman's home in Aubum,. as well as a nin~teenth-centUl)' young labor leader named Kate
Mullany's house in Troy, as well as ending :up at Seneca Falls. In her book, titled It's Up to the
Women, she told Americans that if we were! to survive the D~ptession, save and humanize
capitalism, make democracy more vibrant, then women must take risks ' .
and get involved, She
" . ,
I
wrote: "Women, whether subtly or vocifero,usly, have been a tremen~ous power in the destiny of
the world." And that is why we must remember the women who spoke up and took action and
changed the course of our history.!
.
.
' I
.
This monument has been saved and!livedon thartks to the foresight' and the hard work of
eaJ"ly founders and contributors and fliends bfVal-Kill, members of the Roosevelt family and the
National PaJ'k Service. But they cannot do this without the generous support of so many others. .
We have to do more to conserve the structure of the house and the precious items within it. .
That's why I'm very pleaSed to announce today that Val-Kill Cottage has been designated as an
official project of Save.. America's Treasurd, and Sarah, I would like to present to you this
.
,
I
�certification from the National Tmst for Hi~toric Preservation to the National Park Service .
.(applause)
,
With Save America's Treasm:es, wejhave already dedicated to our historic sights $60
million dollars in federal grants, and $44 m~llion dollars raised through private donations to
match those federal dollars. Nothing has giren me greater pleasure than to create the
relationships between generous private donors, individuals, cOl'porations, 'foundations, and the
I
.
sights that so desperately need these additio,nal funds. So today I am extremely pleased to
announce that the Val-Kill Cottage Preserv~tion Project is dedicating more that $150,000 for this
national historic sight.
Now I know that the woman who was the driving' force behind this effOlt does not want
to be given credit, but I have to say a word about heno all of you. Claudine Bacher has been .
one of the stalwart suppOlters of Save Amerlica's Treasures. She was involved with me from the
very beginning, she was on the bus trip bad in July of 1998, and in the course of our
conversations -- as we were driving throughl the countryside or having a meal together -- she
talked about what the Roosevelts, and Mrs. Roosevelt in particular, had meiillt to her family,
particularly her parents. And we began talk~ng about Val-Kill, where I had been, and looked for
ways to include Val-Kill in this effOlt that \\:,as a national effOlt, to raise the visibility for places
of impOltance like this. If it had not been for Claudine's passion for this project and her tireless
effOlts, we would not be off to such a strong stmt in preserving this impOltant pmt of our histOlY,
and I'd like to ask Claudine to stand so that we can recognize and thank you ..
I
.
Ilm also grateful to James Freund arid Sharon PatJick, Susan Young Shoetz, Jill Irvine
Crow, Joan and Allen Bildner, and many ofithe other donors that moe with us today. It is' fitting
that many of the donors gave their donation~ in the names of their mothers and fathers as a
. tribute to Mrs. Roosevelt, and I know that Claudine's family has made a generous gift in
Claudine's name which continues that kind ~of generational connection. \
.
The money will be used to address t~e most urgent needs of the site, to preserve the
building's exterior, repair that old radio, restore Mrs. Roosevelt's desk, her papers, books, and
photographs, and study and improve the grounds, including the pond. Retuming the landscape to
the way that it appemoed during Mrs. Roosevelt's lifetime will give visitors a better chance of
. understanding this place that she loved so ~el1. She used to take a walk through the grounds, I
think three times a day. It was a great way for her to reconnect with the nature that she loved so
I
.
much and that she could see through the wit;ldqws of her cottage..
.
I
I
When we created the White House Millennium Council, we knew that there were many
places that were in danger of beingforgottet;l or of falling into disrepair, and yettheir stOlies tell
us so much about ourselves. And since America, in many ways, is more than a place - it is an
idea, it is a set of values - we have to preserve those connections among generations, so that
young people today know about the sacrifices, the struggles that those that came before made.
In this audience, I am sure, there are:first-generation Americans and probably tenth- or
twelfth- generation Americans, given the settlement of this pmt of New York, and all of us have
to be connected by the thread ofmemOlY, aqd by a constantly rejuvenated commitment to what it
I
�means to be an Amelican. In the words of Mrs. Roosevelt, we can see how shereally embodied
the struggles of the early part of the twentieth century; how she took what she expelienced in her
own life andti"anslated it into work on behalf of others. I hope that through the work that we do
here we honor her work, her legacy, her timeless values and ideals, her commitment to imagining
.a better future for all people. Whether educ~ting teachers to teach human rights or providing
leadership training to girls or promoting racial hanTIony among young people, the Eleanor
Roosevelt Center is keeping her dream alive, that one day we would live in the future as one
world and one people.
:
.so all of us must take pmt in that effOlt, on her behalf. She reminded us that it was
impOltant to look back to our history, and she was an early preservationist who understood how
important it was to preserve those symbols .. Val-Kill now, thanks to all of you, will not be a
casualty of our indifference, but a real testament to our commitment to keep those memOlies
alive. Mrs. Roosevelt's true home will live :on arid help all of us shm"e her legacy with future
generations of Americans and visitors from 'allover the world.
Some years ago -- actually I think olieof my first public appearances as First Lady in
New Yark City in the midst of a great snowktOlm -- I was looking out at this audience at Lincoln
I
Center, and I said, "You know, the White House just encourages me to have conversations with
Mrs. Roosevelt." (laughter) I meant it as a tbetaphor, but it became, yet again, one of those
things people talked about, I guess suggestirtg that I had gone off the deep end. (laughter) But,
it's not a bad idea to think about what Mrs. Roosevelt would do or say. If each of us kept in
mind in 'our dealings with one another, in hqw we treatthose who appear different from us, .
whether'we stand up for people who moe forgotten, and keep doing all we can to make our
country'ieverything it should be, then, in sm~l daily ways, we are paying tribute to her. And the
next time I talk to her, I will tell her what you alI are doing.
Thank you all very, very much.
###
�
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Lissa Muscatine - Press Office
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
First Lady's Office
Press Office
Lissa Muscatine
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1993 - 1997
Is Part Of
A related resource in which the described resource is physically or logically included.
<a href="http://clinton.presidentiallibraries.us/items/show/36239" target="_blank">Collection Finding Aid</a>
<a href="http://catalog.archives.gov/id/7431941" target="_blank">National Archives Catalog Description</a>
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
2011-0415-S
Description
An account of the resource
<p>Lissa Muscatine first served in the Clinton Administration as a speechwriter. Within the First Lady’s Office, she served as Communications Director to the First Lady.</p>
<p>Lissa Muscatine’s records consist of materials from First Lady Hillary Clinton’s Press Office, highlighting topics such as health care, women’s rights, the Millennium Council, Hillary Clinton’s 2000 Senate campaign, and deal extensively with press interviews given by the First Lady; her domestic and foreign travel; and speeches and remarks, on a wide variety of topics, given by her before and during her time as First Lady. The records include interview transcripts, press releases, speeches and speech transcripts.</p>
Provenance
A statement of any changes in ownership and custody of the resource since its creation that are significant for its authenticity, integrity, and interpretation. The statement may include a description of any changes successive custodians made to the resource.
Clinton Presidential Records: White House Staff and Office Files
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Clinton Presidential Library & Museum
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
Adobe Acrobat Document
Extent
The size or duration of the resource.
1,324 folders in 27 boxes
Text
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text.
Original Format
The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data
Paper
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
FLOTUS Statement and Speeches 5/2/00 - Current [Binder]: [6-17-00 Visit to Val Kill]
Is Part Of
A related resource in which the described resource is physically or logically included.
Box 25
<a href="http://clintonlibrary.gov/assets/Documents/Finding-Aids/Systematic/2011-0415-S-Muscatine.pdf" target="_blank">Collection Finding Aid</a>
<a href="http://catalog.archives.gov/id/7431941" target="_blank">National Archives Catalog Description</a>
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
First Lady's Office
Press Office
Lissa Muscatine
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
2011-0415-S
Provenance
A statement of any changes in ownership and custody of the resource since its creation that are significant for its authenticity, integrity, and interpretation. The statement may include a description of any changes successive custodians made to the resource.
Clinton Presidential Records: White House Staff and Office Files
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Clinton Presidential Library & Museum
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
Adobe Acrobat Document
Medium
The material or physical carrier of the resource.
Reproduction-Reference
Date Created
Date of creation of the resource.
11/26/2012
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
2011-0415-S-flotus-statements-speeches-5-2-00-current-binder-6-17-00-visit-val-kill
7431941