Cottage Industry: The Val-Kill Furniture Shop

The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1000 5th Ave, 10028, New York City

July 1, 2026 – May 9, 2027

*Cottage Industry: The Val-Kill Furniture Shop* celebrates the 100th anniversary of Val-Kill, the furniture enterprise founded in 1926 by Eleanor Roosevelt, Nancy Cook, Marion Dickerman, and Caroline O’Day. Inspired in part by The Met’s early American collections, Val-Kill revived historical furniture traditions while bringing together women leaders, immigrant makers, and rural craftspeople. The exhibition uses loans from the Eleanor Roosevelt National Historic Site and the Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library and Museum to show how craft, design, and social reform were closely linked. Featuring more than 30 works, it includes Val-Kill furniture, conceptual drawings, and workshop templates that reveal the collaborative design process behind the pieces. Highlights include desks, tables, and chairs from Eleanor Roosevelt’s Hyde Park home. The show also places Val-Kill in context with related Arts and Crafts furniture by Gustav Stickley and the Byrdcliffe Colony, as well as Depression-era prints, paintings, and sculpture, showing the workshop’s lasting influence and progressive ideals.