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
This year, CDA is supporting six institutions with grants totaling $25,000.
The Andalusia Historic House, Gardens, & Arboretum
The Andalusia Historic House, Gardens, & Arboretum is a 50-acre site overlooking the Delaware River, just north of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. CDA funding this year is fully supporting their Archive Room Project.
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.
Fairfield Foundation
The Fairfield Foundation will receive funds to supplement staff time for interactions that will result in memorable and high quality educational experience, plus cover scholarships for three students who have the passion and drive but not the financial means to attend the program.
American Village
The funds awarded will allow American Village to purchase two benches for the Colonial Garden. They will be two identical Lutyens style benches in order to best 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. With these new benches, it will not only add necessary seating in the Colonial Garden, but will also feature engraved plaques recognizing The Colonial Dames of America’s continued support of the American Village.
The Omohundro Institute of Early American History and Culture
CDA has also granted funds to cover a Fellowship for Historical Editing in historical editing to the Omohundro Institute of Early American History & Culture. The OI is an independent research organization sponsored by the College of William & Mary and Colonial Williamsburg. Its mission is to support scholars and scholarship and to share that work widely for the public good, via events and programs, fellowships, and publications (including its distinguished book series and journal, the William and Mary Quarterly).
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. This year’s grant supports the Nelle Fabyan’s Parisian Couture Ball Gown Condition, Assessment and Conservation, as well all the Durant and Peterson Families’ Clothing and Period Clothing for Junior Docents. CDA funding has previously supported the Fayban Villa Museum, the 325-acre estate of Colonel George Fayban and the site of his research laboratory which pioneered American codebreaking during WWI, as well as the installation of additional interpretive signage and the hiring of additional staff to keep up with public demand.
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.