Each year, The Colonial Dames of America through its Education and Scholarship Committee awards grants to several institutions for student fellowships, history education initiatives, archaeological studies, and historic preservation projects.
Below are recent awardees, as well as the long-standing recipients of CDA grants.
To support CDA’s mission for historic preservation and education, donate directly to the Education and Scholarship Fund here.
2025 Education and Scholarship Recipients
This year, CDA is supporting three institutions with grants totaling $15,000.
Plimoth Patuxet Museum of Plymouth
Replicating the original Plymouth Colony, Plimoth Patuxet is a complex of living history museums representing daily life in 1627. Begun in 1947 with two English cottages and a fort, Plimoth Patuxet has since expanded to include Mayflower II, the English Village, the Wampanoag Homesite, and much more! CDA funding will go to support The Children’s Fund for admissions of students from low-income neighborhoods, and enable them to discover the past through the oldest town in New England.
Jamestown Rediscovery
The Jamestown Rediscovery Foundation is a non-profit dedicated to uncovering, preserving, and sharing Jamestown’s diverse history and its contributions to the foundations of America. CDA’s funding will go to support “The Powhatan Indians” educational program, a Native American living history interpretation, developed and implemented by Daniel FireHawk Abbott of the Nanticoke people. Abbott’s programs draw together Algonquian culture and lifeways, as well as the material history found on the Jamestown site, and stories of Native American and English first encounters in Colonial Virginia.
American Village
Evoking America’s founding, American Village is a space emblematic of America’s heritage of liberty and self-government, using structures not only as classrooms and theaters, but as symbols themselves. American Village plans to construct a full-scale replica of Philadelphia’s Independence Hall, with dedicated exhibit and gallery spaces for historical artifacts and educational collections. CDA will support new civics education programming within the new space, teaching students critical knowledge about America’s founding and government while immersing them in the historical context of our country’s birth.
2024 Education and Scholarship Recipients
In 2024, CDA supported six institutions with grants totaling $25,000.
The Andalusia Historic House, Gardens, & Arboretum
A 50-acre site overlooking the Delaware River, just north of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, CDA funding fully supported their Archive Room Project.
As the Andalusia Historic House reported in their publication: “Andalusia’s collections benefited from some much-needed upkeep, thanks to a grant from the Colonial Dames of America. The Archives Room in the Big House stores some of Andalusia’s most treasured historic records. Renovated more than fifteen years ago, the archival holdings have grown since, to the point of exceeding available space. This grant allowed us to expand storage by about 40%, so that we can continue to safely care for these unique and rare collections. The timing of the grant coincides with the start of an exciting long-term project that will rely on Andalusia’s archives, as well as resources from other collections…for an exhibition about the Biddle family and the Revolution, planned for 2026, the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence.”
East Carolina University Archaeological Field School
CDA funding offsets the full cost of one student at the ECU Archaeological Field School’s summer program. This year’s program will be located in Colonial Bath, North Carolina. There, the students will be excavating the site of John Lawson’s house, the founder of Bath in 1711.
An excerpt from the field report states, “The 2024 East Carolina University Archaeological Field School returned to Bath, North Carolina to conduct further excavations on the Bonner House Lot. Attempting to better understand the layout of what is attributed to be John Lawson’s residence, the field school spent 5 weeks excavating 21 units, 21 shovel test pits, and 9 features. Archaeological materials such as historic ceramics, kaolin pipes, iron artifacts, brick, glass, ballast, and faunal remains were recovered. All artifacts recovered from the site were analyzed and curated at the Phelps Archaeological Laboratory at East Carolina University. Archaeological excavation and research confirmed an early 18th century presence at the site and uncovered the eastern hearth of what is believed to be part of the 1706 home of John Lawson.“
Fairfield Foundation
The Fairfield Foundation promotes and involves the public in hands-on archaeology, preservation and education activities within Virginia’s Middle Peninsula and surrounding areas.
CDA’s grant supported six student interns who had the passion and drive but not the financial means to attend the Foundation’s program. Thanks to CDA, these students were able to participate in a week-long learning experience at excavation sites including the Fairfield Archaeology Park and the King William Courthouse Tavern. There, they washed and cataloged artifacts, learned about the curation of archeological collections, and documented research from the 18th and 19th centuries.
American Village
On January 17, 2025, the two Lutyens-style benches funded by the CDA were successfully installed in the Colonial Knot Garden at American Village in Montevallo, AL. The benches feature an engraving “The Colonial Dames of America Founded in 1890” to commemorate the grant. The identical benches express the symmetry appropriate in the formal Italianate colonial knot garden located at Washington Hall – the Village’s replica of Mount Vernon.
The benches will complement the knot garden, which features four quadrants outlined with boxwood shrubbery, just as would have been seen in a formal Virginia Revolutionary-era pleasure garden. The Colonial Knot Garden at the American Village is designed to be a living tribute to the history and beauty of the Colonial era. The addition of two Lutyens style benches enhances the garden’s historical integrity and offers visitors an opportunity to pause and engage with the garden’s surroundings.
The Omohundro Institute of Early American History and Culture
CDA also granted funds to cover a Fellowship for Historical Editing to the Omohundro Institute of Early American History & Culture. The Omohundro Institute of Early American History and Culture (OI) is an independent research organization located in Williamsburg, Virginia, sponsored by William & Mary and Colonial Williamsburg. Founded in 1943, the OI supports the scholars and scholarship of vast early America—a term used to describe the capacious histories of North America and related geographies, including foundational histories of indigenous peoples, the scale and impact of transatlantic slavery, and multidimensional European colonization and settlement, from the 1450s to the 1820s. CDA has been a long time supporter of this Fellowship.
W&M Ph.D. student Taylor M. Garrison was the Omohundro Institute’s CDA fellow in the summer of 2024. Working for the William and Mary Quarterly editors, Garrison completed source checking on three full-length articles, the most recent of went to the press just a few weeks ago. In addition, she also did the fact-checking for two book reviews in October’s issue to keep the book review section on schedule.
Preservation Partners of the Fox Valley of St. Charles, Illinois
Preservation Partners of the Fox Valley of St. Charles, Illinois, promotes the appreciation and preservation of Fox Valley’s rich architectural and historical resources through educational programing and the operation of five historic sites. CDA’s grant specifically supported the Nelle Fabyan’s Parisian Couture Ball Gown Condition, Assessment and Conservation, as well as Durant and Peterson Families’ Clothing and Period Clothing for Junior Docents. Nelle Fabyan’s ballgown was designed by Georges Doeuillet and features rose satin, gold filigree, and handmade rosettes adorning the bodice. The gown is the last known remaining item of clothing owned by either Nelle or George Fabyan. An assessment was performed by the Conservation Center of Chicago to determine the treatment needed to restore the gown to its original appearance. Thanks to funding in part from our Education and Scholarship grant, conservation began in 2024. Some of the extensive treatment involved replacing the deteriorated bobbinet and silk linings, adding new supports to the straps, and fixing the detached metallic lace.
Preservation Partners aim to complete a dedicated display case for the gown in 2025, making the Fabyan Villa Museum the only museum in the world to have one of Doeuillet’s gowns available for public viewing.
Long-standing Grant Recipients
The Colonial Dames of America is proud to have provided long-standing support the these entities.
Historic Jamestowne Rediscovery
CDA has had a relationship with this project since 1907, when the Society donated the memorial gates. In 2019, CDA raised funds to restore, reguild, and landscape these entrance gates to Historic Jamestowne. A grant to Historic Jamestowne Rediscovery supports a Colonial Dames of America Fellow in Archaeology working under the supervision of archaeologists at Historic Jamestowne, the site of the first permanent English settlement in North America. Since the discovery of the original palisade fortifications, archaeologists have continued to make significant finds. Excavations of the remains of “Jane,” who died during the 1609-1610 Starving Time; a fully articulated skeleton of an 18th century horse, and four graves within the 1608 church (the first Protestant Church in North America) have made a dramatic impact on our understanding of that period.
Omohundro Institute of Early American History and Culture at the College of William and Mary, Williamsburg, Virginia
A grant to the Omohundro Institute of Early American History and Culture at the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia supports a fellowship in historical editing. The fellowship offers a talented young graduate student the opportunity to build upon the skills that she or he has acquired as an Institute editorial apprentice during the academic year. The fellowship supports his or her continued editorial work throughout the summer following the apprenticeship and thus makes a significant contribution to the Institute’s ability to maintain the high standards for which all of its publications—the William and Mary Quarterly and book manuscripts—are known.
Graduate Center of History at City University, New York
A grant to the Graduate Center of History at the City University of New York is awarded to a graduate student writing a dissertation on a topic in American history. The 2014 recipient was Christopher Morell, whose research focuses on female benevolence in the Early Republic, including charitable organizations as sites of contested political space and the relationship between charitable workers and the working-class community of New York City. This gift was presented in honor of Presidential Professor of History, Carol Berkin.