In this episode of the podcast I delve into the fascinating and inspiring narrative history of Eleanor Roosevelt. The first part of the episode is a mini-bio of her life and times and the latter part is a guide of how to visit the site and what you can expect to see there.

https://www.nps.gov/elro/index.htm Here's the park website to help you plan your visit. Tours are free and run hourly on the half hour. You will be visiting Eleanor's furniture factory Val-Kill where she helped to teach the rural poor carpentry and other trades. Later in life she converted the factory into her personal residence and that is the period the museum interprets.

If you are looking to eat in the area I recommend picking something up from Rossi's and having a picnic, also great Italian pastries from La Deliziosa in Poughkeepsie NY. https://www.rossideli.com/ https://www.ladeliziosany.com/ I encourage you to get out and visit Eleanor Roosevelt National Historic Site and learn all about Eleanor!

In Episode 2 I dive into the history of and how to visit FDR National Historic Site aka Springwood in Hyde Park NY. Springwood was the home of president Franklin Delano Roosevelt. The site also contains the visitor’s center and the Presidential Library and museum which contains a huge amount of interpretive signs about FDR and interactive exhibits.

Here’s the website to help plan your visit https://www.nps.gov/hofr/index.htm

I don’t cover everything about FDR or the Roosevelts in the episode because that is beyond the scope of this podcast but I do give a mini-biography covering what I consider the main points of his career including his term as governor of NY, the Depression, the New Deal, the presidency and of course World War Two.

Welcome to our very first episode of Empire State History and thank you for joining us on this journey! This podcast will be a historical narrative with information on how to visit the fantastic historic sites we have here in New York. For our first episode we visit Fort Montgomery a Revolutionary War fort attacked and destroyed by the British in 1777.

See more show notes and photos at our website: http://www.empirestatehistory.com

https://parks.ny.gov/historic-sites/28/details.aspx (Fort Montgomery)

https://parks.ny.gov/parks/13/details.aspx (Bear Mountain)