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.
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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. 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
Willie Kavanaugh Hocker (1862–1944), schoolteacher and designer of the Flag of Arkansas
Ida Sherman Jenne (1860–1934), President National of the U.S. Daughters of 1812
Jane Tunstall Lingo (1924–2007), journalist and socialite