A researcher perusing the NSDAR Archives would expect to find early correspondence relating to the National Society’s formation, the proceedings of previous Continental Congresses and photos of the travels of past Presidents General. The Archives includes other, unexpected items too—such as its collection of 57 historic gavels donated throughout the

President General Sarah E. Guernsey told the 27th Continental Congress in 1918 that the National Society had outgrown Memorial Continental Hall.  She stated, “While we owned considerable land in the block in which our building Memorial Continental Hall is situated, there was sufficient land not owned by us to make

Recent events inspired this issue’s Flashback item. On April 1, 2015, on the invitation of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, President General Lynn Forney Young attended an event marking the launch of a project to digitize the Royal Archives of King George III, who reigned from 1760–1820. The effort, initiated

Dr. Anita Newcomb McGee was an organizing member of the National Society and the first Librarian General. Born on November 4, 1864, in Washington, D.C., she was educated in private schools in the city and later traveled in Europe for three years, during which time she took courses at Newham

The First Continental Congress was held February 22, 23 and 24 1892, at the Church of Our Father at the corner of 13th and L Streets in Washington, D.C. In 1930 this church became the Universalist National Memorial Church; the original structure was razed in 1973 and an office building

On February 22, 1894, a portrait of first NSDAR President General Caroline Scott Harrison, who was also the wife of President Benjamin Harrison, was unveiled. This portrait painted by Daniel Huntington was presented to the White House by the National Society. A copy hangs in the President General’s Reception room

“Emblems are quite essential to all well-organized bodies and should be suggestive of the organization they represent,” Fannie S. Ketterman wrote in an article titled “Our Insignia,” which appeared in the February 1913 issue of The American Monthly Magazine. The article explains, “Soon after the organization of the National Society Daughters

In the Pennsylvania Foyer of Memorial Continental Hall, 10 niches sit just below the ceiling, each one home to a sculpted bust of a Revolutionary figure. A Handbook of Memorial Continental Hall published in 1912 identified the busts and the donors who funded them.

The central niche over the three

In the earliest days of the National Society, even as members worked to establish the framework of the organization, Daughters took immediate action to honor the memory of the men and women who were indispensable to the fight for American independence. The subject of their initial effort never fired a

J.E. Caldwell served as the official jeweler for the National Society for more than 100 years before the company was purchased by Hamilton Jewelers. During the organization’s early years three sterling silver spoons were created for the National Society and reproductions of one of them is still available. Shortly after