Daughters of the American Revolution

In 1889, the centennial of President George Washington's inauguration was celebrated, and Americans looked for additional ways to recognize their past. Out of the renewed interest in United States history, numerous patriotic and preservation societies were founded. On July 13, 1890, after the Sons of the American Revolution refused to allow women to join their group, Mary Smith Lockwood published the story of patriot Hannah White Arnett in The Washington Post, asking, "Where will the Sons and Daughters of the American Revolution place Hannah Arnett?"^[7] On July 21 of that year, William O. McDowell, a great-grandson of Hannah White Arnett, published an article in The Washington Post offering to help form a society to be known as the Daughters of the American Revolution.^[7] The first meeting of the society was held August 9, 1890.^[7]

 

The first DAR chapter was organized on October 11, 1890,^[8] at the Strathmore Arms, the home of Mary Smith Lockwood, one of the DAR's four co-founders. Other founders were Eugenia Washington, a great-grandniece of George Washington, Ellen Hardin Walworth, and Mary Desha. They had also held organizational meetings in August 1890.^[9] Other attendees in October were Sons of the American Revolution members Registrar General Dr. George Brown Goode, Secretary General A. Howard Clark, William O. McDowell (SAR member #1), Wilson L. Gill (secretary at the inaugural meeting), and 18 other people.

The U.S. First Lady Caroline Lavina Scott Harrison, wife of President Benjamin Harrison, lent her prestige to the founding of DAR, and served as its first President General. Having initiated a renovation of the White House, she was interested in historic preservation. She helped establish the goals of DAR, which was incorporated by congressional charter in 1896.

 

In this same period, similar organizations as the Colonial Dames of America, the National Society of the Colonial Dames of America, the General Society of Colonial Wars, the Mayflower Society, the Mary Washington Memorial Society, Preservation of the Virginia Antiquities, United Daughters of the Confederacy, and Sons of Confederate Veterans were also founded. This was in addition to numerous fraternal and civic organizations flourishing in this period.

On March 3, 1913, the Woman Suffrage Procession concluded with a rally at Memorial Continental Hall, the society's national headquarters, as many members of DAR were active in the women's suffrage movement.^[10]

DAR is structured into three Society levels: National Society, State Society, and Chapter. A State Society may be formed in any US State, the District of Columbia, or other countries that are home to at least one DAR Chapter. Chapters can be organized by a minimum of 12 members, or prospective members, who live in the same city or town.^[11]

Each Society or Chapter is overseen by an executive board composed of a variety of officers. National level officers are: President General, First Vice President General, Chaplain General, Recording Secretary General, Corresponding Secretary General, Organizing Secretary General, Treasurer General, Registrar General, Historian General, Librarian General, Curator General, and Reporter General, to be designated as Executive Officers, and twenty-one Vice Presidents General. These officers are mirrored at the State and Chapter level, with a few changes: instead of a President General, States and Chapters have Regents, the twenty-one Vice Presidents General become one Second Vice Regent position, and the title of "General" is replaced by the title of either "State" or "Chapter". Example: First Vice President General becomes State First Vice Regent.^[12]

 

The DAR chapters raised funds to initiate a number of historic preservation and patriotic endeavors. They began a practice of installing markers at the graves of Revolutionary War veterans to indicate their service, and adding small flags at their gravesites on Memorial Day.

Other activities included commissioning and installing monuments to battles and other sites related to the War. The DAR recognized women patriots' contributions as well as those of soldiers. For instance, they installed a monument at the site of a spring where Polly Hawkins Craig and other women got water to use against flaming arrows, in the defense of Bryan Station (present-day Lexington, Kentucky).

In addition to installing markers and monuments, DAR chapters have purchased, preserved, and operated historic houses and other sites associated with the war.

In the 19th century, the U.S. military did not have an affiliated group of nurses to treat servicemembers during wartime. At the onset of the Spanish–American War in 1898, the U.S. Army appointed Dr. Anita Newcomb McGee as Acting Assistant Surgeon to select educated and experienced nurses to work for the Army. As Vice President of the DAR (who also served as NSDAR's first Librarian General), Dr. McGee founded the DAR Hospital Corps to vet applicants for nursing positions. The DAR Hospital Corps certified 1,081 nurses for service during the Spanish–American War. DAR later funded pensions for many of these nurses who did not qualify for government pensions.

Some of DAR-certified nurses were trained by the American Red Cross, and many others came from religious orders such as the Sisters of Charity, Sisters of Mercy, and Sisters of the Holy Cross.^[13][14] These nurses served the U.S. Army in the U.S., Cuba, and the Philippines during the war. They paved the way for the eventual establishment—with Dr. McGee's assistance—of the Army Nurse Corps in 1901.^[15]

During the 1950s, statewide chapters of the DAR took an interest in reviewing school textbooks for their own standards of suitability. In Texas, the statewide "Committee on Investigations of Textbooks" issued a report in 1955 identifying 59 textbooks currently in Texas public schools that had "socialistic slant" or "other deficiencies" including references to "Soviet Russia" in the Encyclopedia Britannica.^[16]

In 1959, the Mississippi chapter's "National Defense Committee" undertook a state lobbying effort that secured an amendment to state law which added "lay" members to the committee reviewing school textbooks. A DAR board member was appointed to one of the seats.^[17]

There are nearly 180,000 current members of the DAR in approximately 3,000 chapters across the United States and in several other countries. The organization describes itself as "one of the most inclusive genealogical societies"^[18] in the United States, noting on its website that, "any woman 18 years or older—regardless of race, religion, or ethnic background—who can prove lineal descent from a patriot of the American Revolution, is eligible for membership".^[18] The current DAR President General is Pamela Rouse Wright, the founder and owner of a jewelry and luxury goods business in Texas.

Membership in the DAR today is open to all women, regardless of race or religion, who can prove lineal bloodline descent from an ancestor who aided in achieving United States independence.^[1] The National Society DAR is the final arbiter of the acceptability of the documentation of all applications for membership.

Qualifying participants in achieving independence include the following:

• Signatories of the United States Declaration of Independence;
• Military veterans of the American Revolutionary War, including State navies and militias, local militias, privateers, and French or Spanish soldiers and sailors who fought in the American theater of war to include the Island of Cuba;
• Civil servants of provisional or State governments, Continental Congress and State conventions and assemblies;
• Signers of Oath of Allegiance or Oath of Fidelity and Support;
• Participants in the Boston Tea Party or Edenton Tea Party;^[19]
• Prisoners of war, refugees, and defenders of fortresses and frontiers; doctors and nurses who aided Revolutionary casualties; ministers; petitioners; and
• Others who gave material or patriotic support to the Revolutionary cause.^[1]

DAR published a book, available online,^[20] with the names of thousands of minority patriots, to enable family and historical research. Its online Genealogical Research System (GRS)^[21] provides access to a database, and it is digitizing family Bibles to collect more information for research.

The organization has chapters in all 50 U.S. states and Washington, D.C.. DAR chapters outside the U.S. have been founded in Australia, Austria, the Bahamas, Bermuda, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Spain, and the United Kingdom. DAR is a governing organization within the Hereditary Society Community of the United States of America, and each DAR President General has served on HSC's board since its inception.

DAR contributes over $1 million annually to support five schools that provide for a variety of special student needs.^[22] The five supported schools are:

• Berry College in Mount Berry, Georgia
• Crossnore School in Crossnore, North Carolina
• Kate Duncan Smith DAR School in Grant, Alabama
• Hillside School in Marlborough, Massachusetts
• Hindman Settlement School in Hindman, Kentucky

Scholarships and funds are given to Native American youth at Chemawa Indian School in Salem, Oregon and Bacone College in Muskogee, Oklahoma.^[22]

 

DAR members participate in a variety of veteran and citizenship-oriented projects, including:

• Providing more than 200,000 hours of volunteer time annually to veterans in U.S. Veterans Administration hospitals and non-VA facilities
• Offering support to America's service personnel in current conflicts abroad through care packages, phone cards and other needed items
• Sponsoring special programs promoting the Constitution during its official celebration week of September 17–23
• Participating in naturalization ceremonies

DAR maintains a genealogical library at its headquarters in Washington, D.C., which provides guides for individuals doing family research. Its bookstore presents scholarship on United States and women's history.

Temporary exhibits in the galleries have featured women's arts and crafts, including items from the DAR's quilt and embroidery collections. Exhibit curators provide a social and historical context for girls' and women's arts in such exhibits, for instance, explaining practices of mourning reflected in certain kinds of embroidery samplers, as well as ideals expressed about the new republic. Permanent exhibits include American furniture, silver, and furnishings.

In 1989, the DAR established the NSDAR Literacy Promotion Committee, which coordinates the efforts of DAR volunteers to promote child and adult literacy. Volunteers teach English, tutor reading, prepare students for GED examinations, raise funds for literacy programs, and participate in many other ways.^[23]

DAR holds an annual national American history essay contest for students in 5th through 8th grades. A different topic is selected each year. Essays are judged "for historical accuracy, adherence to topic, organization of materials, interest, originality, spelling, grammar, punctuation, and neatness." The contest is conducted locally by DAR chapters. Chapter winners compete against each other by region and nationally; national winners receive a monetary award.^[24]

DAR awards $150,000 annually in scholarships to high school graduates, and music, law, nursing, and medical school students. Only two of the 20 scholarships offered are restricted to DAR members or their descendants.^[25]

Certain chapters of the DAR partner with the Sons of the American Revolution to host debutante balls where daughters of members are presented to society as debutantes and sons of members are presented as "patriots".^[26] Members of the Children of the American Revolution may also be presented.^[26] The Pennsylvania State Society of the DAR hosts the annual Constitution Debutante Ball in Valley Forge.^[27] In Lafayette, Louisiana, the Galvez Chapter of the DAR hosts the annual George Washington Ball, commemorating the birthday of George Washington.^[28][29] Young women in the Children of the American Revolution who are either eighteen years of age or a senior in high school may be presented as debutantes at the Virginia DAR State Conference in Richmond.^[30] Debutantes are also presented at the Georgia DAR State Conference.^[31]

In 1932, DAR adopted a rule excluding African American musicians from performing at DAR Constitution Hall in response to complaints by some members against "mixed seating," as both black and white people were attracted to concerts of black artists. In 1939, they denied permission for Marian Anderson to perform a concert. First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt, a DAR member, resigned from the organization.

 

In her letter to the DAR, Roosevelt wrote, "I am in complete disagreement with the attitude taken in refusing Constitution Hall to a great artist...You had an opportunity to lead in an enlightened way and it seems to me that your organization has failed." African-American author Zora Neale Hurston criticized Roosevelt's refusal to condemn the Board of Education of Washington, D.C.'s simultaneous decision to exclude Anderson from singing at the segregated white Central High School. Hurston declared "to jump the people responsible for racial bias would be to accuse and expose the accusers themselves. The District of Columbia has no home rule; it is controlled by congressional committees, and Congress at the time was overwhelmingly Democratic. It was controlled by the very people who were screaming so loudly against the DAR. To my way of thinking, both places should have been denounced, or neither."^[32]

As the controversy grew, American media overwhelmingly backed Anderson's right to sing. The Philadelphia Tribune, an African American newspaper in Philadelphia, wrote, "A group of tottering old ladies, who don't know the difference between patriotism and putridism, have compelled the gracious First Lady to apologize for their national rudeness." The Richmond Times-Dispatch wrote, "In these days of racial intolerance so crudely expressed in the Third Reich, an action such as the D.A.R.'s ban ... seems all the more deplorable." At Eleanor Roosevelt's behest, President Roosevelt and Walter White, then-executive secretary of the NAACP, and Anderson's manager, impresario Sol Hurok arranged an open-air concert on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial with a dignified and stirring rendition of "America (My Country, 'Tis of Thee)". The event attracted a crowd of more than 75,000 in addition to a national radio audience of millions.^[33]

In 1952, DAR reversed its "white performers only" policy.^[34]

 

In 1977, Karen Batchelor Farmer (now Karen Batchelor) from Detroit, was admitted to the Ezra Parker Chapter in Royal Oak, Michigan as the first known DAR African American member.^[35] Batchelor's admission as the first known African American member of DAR sparked international interest after it was featured in a story on page one of The New York Times.^[36] In 1984, Lena Lorraine Santos Ferguson, a retired school secretary, was denied membership in a Washington, D.C. chapter of the DAR because she was Black, according to a report by The Washington Post.^[37] Ferguson met the lineage requirements and could trace her ancestry to Jonah Gay, a white man who fought in Maine.^[37] Sarah M. King, the President General of the DAR, told The Washington Post that DAR's chapters have autonomy in determining members,^[37] saying "Being black is not the only reason why some people have not been accepted into chapters. There are other reasons: divorce, spite, neighbors' dislike. I would say being black is very far down the line....There are a lot of people who are troublemakers. You wouldn't want them in there because they could cause some problems."^[37] After King's comments were reported in a page one story, outrage erupted, and the City Council threatened to revoke the DAR's real estate tax exemption. King quickly qualified her comments, saying that Ferguson should have been admitted, and that her application had been handled "inappropriately". DAR changed its bylaws to bar discrimination "on the basis of race or creed." In addition, King announced a resolution to recognize "the heroic contributions of black patriots in the American Revolution."^[38]

Since the mid-1980s, the DAR has supported a project to identify African Americans, Native Americans, and individuals of mixed race who were patriots of the American Revolution, expanding their recognition beyond soldiers.^[39]

In 2004, Maria Williams-Cole and Arleathia Carter Williams became the first two African-American members of the DAR in Prince George's County, Maryland.^[40]

In 2008, DAR published Forgotten Patriots: African-American and American Indian Patriots in the Revolutionary War.^[20][39] In 2007, the DAR posthumously honored Mary Hemings Bell, an individual enslaved by Thomas Jefferson, as a "Patriot of the Revolution." Because of Hemings Bell's declaration by the DAR to be a Patriot, all of her female descendants qualify for membership in the DAR.^[41]

In 2018, Reisha Raney became the first black woman elected to serve as a DAR state officer in Maryland.^[42] She previously served on the national level of the organization as the vice chairwoman of the membership committee division.^[42] Raney founded Daughter Dialogues, a podcast documenting the narratives of black members of the DAR, which launched on July 1, 2021.^[42][43] In September 2018, Sonja Addison, Stephannie Addison-Mudd, and Brooke Addison Moore became the first African-American members of the Fauquier Court House Chapter of the DAR in Fauquier County, Virginia.^[44]

In June 2019, Wilhelmena Rhodes Kelly became the first African American elected to the DAR National Board of Management when she was installed as New York State Regent.^[45]

In 2022, Sheryl Sims became the first African-American woman to join the Nelly Custis Chapter of the DAR in Alexandria, Virginia.^[46] In September 2022, Sharon Fort became the first African-American woman to join the DAR in Arkansas.^[47] In December 2022, DAR donated $150,000 to the Marian Anderson Museum to help with restoration costs following flood damage to the building in 2020.^[48]

In October 2023, Johnette Gordon-Weaver became the first African-American member of the Williamsburg chapter of the DAR.^[49] Gordon Weaver is a descendant of Anthony Roberts, the first free African-American patriot recognized by the organization at the national level.^[49]

In 2024, Regina Lynch-Hudson became the first woman of color to join the Greenlee Chapter of the DAR in Old Fort, North Carolina, and the first black female descendent of Colonel John Carson to join the national society.^[50][51]

In June 2023, at the 132nd DAR Continental Congress, the organization voted to add an amendment to their bylaws that states the chapters "may not discriminate against an eligible applicant based on race, religion, sexual orientation, national origin, age, disability, or any other characteristic protected by applicable law." DAR spokesperson Bren Landon told Newsweek that the amendment "provides additional non-discrimination language" that protects the society's tax-exempt status. She also told Newsweek that "the new language does not change the criteria for membership," and that "DAR's longstanding membership policy remains unchanged since our founding in 1890."^[52]

At Continental Congress, Jennifer Mease, a delegate and Regent of the Liberty Bell Chapter in Pennsylvania, inquired whether chapters could vote against admitting a new member "whose birth certificate has been altered by their state to indicate they are female even though they were born a male." President General Wright responded to Mease's inquiry by stating "if a person's certified birth certificate states 'female,' they are eligible for membership, and your chapter cannot change that.. if their birth certificate says they are a female, and you vote against them based on their protected class, it's discrimination."^[52] In an official newsletter released after the congress, Wright wrote, "some have asked if this means a transgender woman can join DAR or if this means that DAR chapters have previously welcomed transgender women. The answer to both questions is, yes."^[53] Colonel Teagan Livingston, a transgender woman and retired United States Air Force officer, joined the Daughters of the American Revolution in New Jersey in 2022.^[54]

• Martha Barnhart, civic leader, former NSDAR Treasurer General and former Indiana State Regent NSDAR
• Karen Batchelor, American lawyer and genealogist and the first African American member of the DAR
• Betsy Boze, American academic, chief executive officer and dean, Kent State University Stark^[55]
• Ada E. Brown, first African American woman federal judge appointed by President Donald Trump and confirmed by the Senate, and first African American woman on the United States District Court for the Northern District of Texas in its 140-year history. Second Native American woman to become a federal judge
• A'Lelia Bundles, journalist, news producer, author, and great-great-granddaughter of Madam C. J. Walker
• Carol Burnett, American actress, comedian, singer, and writer
• Laura Bush, former First Lady of the United States^[56]
• Linda Gist Calvin, businesswoman and 41st NSDAR President General
• Bo Derek, actress, former model, and veterans advocate^[56]
• Ann Turner Dillon, 44th President General of the DAR
• Elizabeth Dole, former U.S. Senator from North Carolina, former transportation secretary, labor secretary, American Red Cross president, Federal Trade Commissioner, presidential candidate, and presidential advisor^[56]
• Tammy Duckworth, American Army veteran, former U.S. Representative, and from 2017, U.S. Senator from Illinois. Duckworth is depicted along with Molly Pitcher in a statue sponsored by the DAR Illinois chapter and dedicated to women veterans on the grounds of the Brehm Memorial Library in Mt. Vernon, Illinois^[57]
• Sharon Fort, substance abuse counselor and first African-American member of the Arkansas DAR
• Johnette Gordon-Weaver, historian, civil rights activist, and first African-American member of the Williamsburg Chapter of DAR
• Dorla Eaton Kemper, 37th NSDAR President General
• Teagan Livingston, aviator and retired colonel in the United States Air Force
• Candace Whittemore Lovely, painter
• Regina Lynch-Hudson, publicist, historian and first African-American member of the Greenlee Chapter of DAR
• Laura W. Murphy, lobbyist, civil rights activist, and former director of the Washington Legislative Office for the American Civil Liberties Union
• Donna Nelson, chemistry professor
• Katie Pavlich, conservative commentator, author, blogger, and podcaster
• Reisha Raney, business executive, engineer, podcaster, and first African-American state officer of the Maryland DAR
• Sarah Huckabee Sanders, Governor of Arkansas
• Margaret Rhea Seddon, NASA astronaut^[56]
• Sheryl Sims, American quilter and first African-American member of the Nelly Custis Chapter of DAR
• Denise Doring VanBuren, 45th President General of the DAR
• Wilma Vaught, American military officer and first woman to reach the rank of brigadier general from the comptroller field
• Presley Merritt Wagoner, 40th President General of the DAR
• Maria Williams-Cole, first African-American member of the DAR in Prince George's County, Maryland
• Pamela Rouse Wright, 46th President General of the DAR
• Lynn Forney Young, 43rd President General of the DAR and Commissioner for the United States Semiquincentennial

The presidents general of the society have been:^[102][103]

•  
  Caroline Scott Harrison, First DAR President General
•  
  Mrs. Julius Young Talmadge Named DAR President General
•  
  Silver Arrow, the symbol of the Dillon administration in the form of a pin.

*Note: During the Watkins administration, the President General and other National Officers began to be referred to by their own first names, rather than their husbands'.

 

A memorial to the Daughters of the American Revolution's four founders at Constitution Hall in Washington, D.C., was dedicated on April 17, 1929. It was sculpted by Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney, a DAR member.^[104][105]

In the American comedy-drama television series Gilmore Girls, the character Emily Gilmore is a regent of a chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution. Her granddaughter, Rory Gilmore, is presented to society at a DAR debutante ball and later joins the organization.^[106]

In the American medical drama television series Grey's Anatomy, the character Miranda Bailey mentions in the third season episode Scars and Souvenirs that she received a DAR scholarship in her youth.

• The Hereditary Society Community of the United States of America
• Children of the American Revolution
• National Society Daughters of the American Colonists
• Colonial Dames of America
• The National Society of the Colonial Dames of America
• National Society Colonial Dames XVII Century
• Old Stock Americans
• Society of the Cincinnati
• Sons of the American Revolution
• Sons of the Revolution
• Sons of Union Veterans of the Civil War
• The United Empire Loyalists Association of Canada
• United States Daughters of 1812

  This article incorporates public domain material from websites or documents of the National Archives and Records Administration.

• National Society of the Sons of the American Revolution (1991). Centennial History of the National Society of the Sons of the American Revolution, 1889–1989. Nashville, Tennessee: Turner Publishing Company. ISBN 9781563110283.

Independent accounts

• Anderson, Peggy. The Daughters (1972)
• Bailey, Diana L. American Treasure: The Enduring Spirit of the DAR, Walsworth Publishing Company (2007)
• Julie Des Jardins, Women and the Historical Enterprise in America: Gender, Race, and the Politics of Memory, 1880–1945, University of North Carolina Press (2003)
• Strayer, Martha. The D.A.R.: An Informal History, Washington, DC. Public Affairs Press (1958) (critically reviewed by Gilbert Steiner as covering personalities but not politics, Review, The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, v.320, "Highway Safety and Traffic Control" (Nov. 1958), pp. 148–149.)
• Wendt, Simon. The Daughters of the American Revolution and Patriotic Memory in the Twentieth Century (U Press of Florida, 2020) online review
• Sara Wallace Goodman (2020) "'Good American citizens': a text-as-data analysis of citizenship manuals for immigrants, 1921–1996." Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies

DAR-related

• Hunter, Ann Arnold. A Century of Service: The Story of the DAR. Washington, DC: National Society Daughters of the American Revolution (1991).
• Simkovich, Patricia Joy. Indomitable Spirit: The Life of Ellen Hardin Walworth, Washington, DC: National Society Daughters of the American Revolution (2001). (The life story of Ellen Hardin Walworth, one of the NSDAR founders.)
• 125 Years of Devotion to America, Washington, DC: National Society Daughters of the American Revolution. DAR publication that includes reflections, prayers and ceremonial excerpts to capture material about the DAR and its members' service.

 

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Daughters of the American Revolution.

• Official website