Nancy Cook

Nancy Cook (August 26, 1884 – August 16, 1962) was an American suffragist, educator, political organizer, business woman, and friend of Eleanor Roosevelt. With her partner Marion Dickerman and Roosevelt, she was co-owner of Val-Kill Industries, the Women's Democratic News, and the Todhunter School.

Born in Massena, New York she attended Syracuse University where she graduated with a bachelor's degree in arts in 1912.

She taught first at Fulton, New York, where she taught art and handicrafts to high school students from 1913 to 1918. It was here that she met Syracuse classmate Marion Dickerman, who taught arts and handicrafts as well. These two women become lifelong partners, spending almost their entire adult lives together.

Her respect for Woodrow Wilson's vision overcame her strong antiwar sentiments and she and Dickerman both became active in the Red Cross. As Dickerman later recounted, they "really believed this was a war to end wars and make the world safe for democracy." In 1918, they both traveled to London to assist the women-staffed Endell Street Military Hospital and "scrub floors or perform whatever other chores were required." Cook would, with less than two weeks training, begin to make artificial limbs for soldiers that had lost an arm or a leg.

Cook, who had never felt teaching to be her element, was delighted when Harriet Hay Mills asked Cook if she would accept the position as executive secretary of the Women's Division of the State Democratic Committee, a post she would hold for nineteen years. She held key responsibility in Al Smith and Franklin Roosevelt's gubernatorial and presidential campaigns.

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