The National Society of The Colonial Dames of America (often abbreviated as NSCDA) is an American lineage society composed of women who are descended from an ancestor "who came to reside in an American Colony before 1776, and whose services were rendered during the Colonial Period." The organization has 43 local societies. The national headquarters is Dumbarton House in Georgetown, Washington, D.C.
History The organization was founded in 1891, shortly after the founding of a similar society, the Colonial Dames of America (CDA), which was created to have a centrally organized structure under the control of the parent Society in New York City.
The NSCDA was intended as a federation of State Societies in which each unit had a degree of autonomy.The National Society of The Colonial Dames of America, Pennsylvania Headquarters Another society formed around the same time was the Daughters of the American Revolution. Organized following the United States Centennial of 1876 and a Centennial of the US Constitution in New York in 1889, the NSCDA has worked in historic preservation, restoration and the interpretation of historic sites since its New York Society first undertook the preservation of the Van Cortlandt House in 1897.
The organization includes 43 corporate societies. Its headquarters is located at Dumbarton House, in Washington, D.C. In addition to its activities in museum work, the Society sponsors scholarship programs and other historic preservation, patriotic service and educational projects. Historic house museums owned or operated by the NSCDA include: Andrew Low House, Savannah, Georgia Burgwin-Wright House, Wilmington, North Carolina Henry B. Clarke House, Chicago, Illinois Dumbarton House, Washington, DC, the Society's national headquarters Governor Stephen Hopkins House, Providence, Rhode Island Gunston Hall, Mason Neck, Virginia Haywood Hall, Raleigh, North Carolina Old Indian Agency House, Portage, Wisconsin Hoover-Minthorn House, Newberg, Oregon Liberty Hall, Frankfort, Kentucky McElroy Octagon House, San Francisco, California Plum Grove Historic House, Iowa City, Iowa Stenton, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Ximenez-Fatio House, St. Augustine, Florida Mount Clare, Baltimore, Maryland McAllister House Museum, Colorado Springs, Colorado Webb-Deane-Stevens Museum, Wethersfield, Connecticut Hotel de Paris Museum, Georgetown, Colorado Joel Lane Museum House, Raleigh, North Carolina Old First Presbyterian Church of Wilmington, Wilmington, Delaware Tate House, Portland, Maine Moffat-Ladd House, Portsmouth, New Hampshire Whitehall Museum House, Middletown, Rhode Island William Hickling Prescott House, Boston, Massachusetts Wilton House Museum, Richmond, Virginia Peachfield, Westampton, New Jersey
Notable members Helen Gilman Noyes Brown (1867–1942), philanthropist Carol Cadou, museum curator and administrator, former executive director of the society from 2021 - 2024 Ruth Coltrane Cannon (1891–1965), preservationist, historian, and philanthropist Sarah Johnson Cocke (1865–1944), writer and civic leader Alice Creelman (1858–1952), artist and art dealer Mary Mayo Crenshaw (1875–1951), author Ella Loraine Dorsey (1853–1935), author, journalist, and translator Marion Moncure Duncan (1913–1978), businesswoman and lineage society leader Nellie Kinzie Gordon (1835–1917), writer and first president of the society Grace Gemberling (1903–1997), painter Anne Lyon Haight (1891–1977), author, essayist, and collector Mary Hilliard Hinton (1869–1961), painter, historian, and anti-suffragist Ida Sherman Jenne (1860–1934), President National of the U.S. Daughters of 1812 Jane Tunstall Lingo (1924–2007), journalist and socialite Anne Hazen McFarland (1868–1930), physician and medical journal editor Florence MacKubin (1857–1918), portrait painter Mary Martha Presley Merritt (died 1994), politician Mary Lane Morrison (1907–1994), writer, historian and preservationist Theodora Agnes Peck (1882–1964), author and poet Isabel Weld Perkins (1876–1948), heiress, author, and society hostess Delia Lyman Porter (1858–1933), author, social reformer, and clubwoman Sara Agnes Rice Pryor (1830–1912), writer and community activist Sarah Corbin Robert (1886–1972), authority on parliamentary procedure Eron Rowland (1861/2–1951), historian and author Marion Margery Scranton (1884–1960), women’s suffrage activist Annie Bartlett Shepard (1861–1944), American anti-suffragist Sarah Logan Wister Starr (1873–1956), humanitarian Lilian Carpenter Streeter (1854–1935), social reformer and author Mary Oates Spratt Van Landingham (1852–1937), Vice President of the North Carolina Society of the Colonial Dames Presley Merritt Wagoner, 40th President General of the DAR Eva Ingersoll Wakefield (1892–1970), writer and poet Margaret Anderson Watts (1832–1905), social reformer May Rogers Webster (1873–1938), naturalist Anne Hollingsworth Wharton (1845–1928), writer and historian Helen M. Winslow (1851–1938), editor, author, publisher, and journalist Anna Wolcott (1868–1928), educator Frances Fisher Wood (1852–1938), educator, lecturer, and scientist Mary van Kleeck (1883–1972), social scientist and feminist
See also Sons of the American Revolution (SAR) Children of the American Revolution (C.A.R.) The Mayflower Society Society of the Cincinnati Southern Dames of America
References
External links Official website Complete list of active hereditary societies Papers, 1975-ca. 1978. Schlesinger Library, Radcliffe Institute, Harvard University. The American Revolution Institute