The Mount Vernon Ladies’ Association (MVLA) is the private, non-profit organization that has owned and operated George Washington’s Mount Vernon since 1860. Founded by Ann Pamela Cunningham of South Carolina, the Association is the oldest national historic preservation organization in the United States.
In 1853, Miss Cunningham’s mother observed the dilapidated Mount Vernon Mansion from a boat in the Potomac River. She was horrified at the sight of Washington’s once grand house covered with peeling paint and overgrown weeds. Its famous piazza was nearing collapse, propped up by old sailing masts.
“I was painfully distressed,” she later wrote to her daughter, “at the ruin and desolation of the home of Washington, and the thought passed through my mind: Why was it that the women of his country did not try to keep it in repair, if the men could not do it?”
Inspired by her mother’s conviction, Ann Pamela Cunningham launched a campaign to raise the funds necessary to purchase and preserve the home of Washington. The Association she founded in 1853 included a network of supporters working under a council of 13 women from across the nation. They appealed to the American people to raise $200,000 in an unprecedented grassroots fundraising campaign. Five years later …show more content…
They first sought to stabilize and repair the run-down buildings—a challenging feat during a time when preservation standards did not exist and at the precipice of the Civil War. Inside the Mansion, only a handful of Washington family pieces remained, leaving the home almost empty. Over the decades that followed, the Vice Regents—the council of women representatives from each state—led the effort to furnish each room with 18th-century pieces and original Washington belongings. Piece by piece, Washington’s estate was returned to its former