Description
Great American Treasures: Women Preserving History Since 1891 is a breathtaking collection of stories celebrating the women and historic sites dedicated to preserving America’s past. Proceeds from every purchase go directly toward supporting historic preservation. Order your copy today and join us in safeguarding our nation’s heritage.
Release Date: TBD
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After more than a century of dedicated stewardship of historic sites, the members and staff of The National Society of The Colonial Dames of America (NSCDA) launched a museum alliance in 2020 called Great American Treasures (GAT). The number of historic properties owned or supported by the NSCDA’s corporate societies across the United States has grown since the New York Society restored and opened the Van Courtlandt House in the Bronx between 1895-1897. In 2025, the NSCDA will publish a hardcover volume to celebrate these historic treasures. Two previous publications also focused on NSCDA sites: Houses, History, and People (Richard Pratt, 1965) and Domestic Views (William Seale, 1992). In contrast to these previous publications by male authors, the NSCDA’s newest publication is authored by female historians, curators, preservationists and horticulturists.
Great American Treasures: Women Preserving History since 1891 features the NSCDA’s collection of historic places, spanning from the 16th to the 20th centuries and highlighting the residences of the people who established themselves in America over the course of three centuries. The publication also features an array of buildings that represent the diversity of cultures, people and architecture in a growing nation — from English Georgian houses on the eastern seaboard to a French Colonial dwelling in Missouri to the Mission Houses in Hawai’i. This publication illuminates the stories and material culture of the wide range of individuals who contributed to the founding of the United States and to the development of America as a dynamic multicultural nation. The earliest property is Sulgrave Manor (1539), located eight miles from Banbury, England, and the most recent is a historic site, Arlington National Cemetery’s Spanish-American War Memorial (1902), dedicated by President Theodore Roosevelt and the first memorial in the US erected by a national women’s organization.
Many of the sites tell the stories of familiar historic figures like George and Martha Washington, John Adams, James and Dolley Madison, John Quincy Adams, Benjamin Franklin and George Mason. Other sites offer the narratives of figures who contributed to America’s cultural heritage, such as artists John James Audubon and John Smibert, or those who helped to shape the country’s mercantile system, like Frederick Van Cortlandt and James Logan. Some places were designed by well known architects such as Robert Mills or McKim, Mead & White, while most were the work of unknown or little-known architects, builders, joiners and enslaved laborers. All the stories in this publication provide a window into the rich diversity of men, women and children–free, indentured and enslaved–who came together to create America.