Founder and First Regent (1855-1874)
Ann Pamela Cunningham was born on August 15, 1816, near Laurens, South Carolina, the daughter of Captain Robert Cunningham and Louisa Dalton Bird. She was educated first by a governess and then at a boarding school in Columbia, South Carolina. Cunningham suffered throughout her adult life with chronic illness and lived as an invalid from her early twenties. She suffered chronic pain and spent much time under the care of physicians in Philadelphia.
Cunningham’s passion for rescuing Mount Vernon was sparked by a letter her mother wrote in 1853. Louisa Cunningham was appalled at the condition of George Washington’s home and stirred her daughter to act. Despite her physical limitations, Ann Pamela determinedly set about to raise funds to purchase Mount Vernon from the former president’s reluctant great-great nephew, John Augustine Washington III.
Learn More About John Augustine Washington III
Digital Encyclopedia
Ann Pamela Cunningham
Learn more about the founder of the Mount Vernon Ladies' Association in our Digital Encyclopedia of George Washington.
Founding the MVLA
Cunningham founded the Mount Vernon Ladies’ Association of the Union to raise money for the purchase and preservation of Washington’s home. She enlisted over 25 well-connected women to serve as Vice Regents to carry out the Association’s mission in their home states. Their work struck a responsive chord in Americans nationwide, enabling the MVLA to gather and deliver Mr. Washington’s asking price of $200,000 within only two years. Cunningham and the Association took possession of the Mansion, Tomb, and grounds at Mount Vernon in the summer of 1860.
Ann Pamela Cunningham with the Mount Vernon Ladies' Association in 1870. MVLA.
Saving Washington's Home
The campaign Cunningham initiated sowed the first seeds of America’s historic-preservation movement. What began with Mount Vernon would, in time, lead to the rescue and restoration of countless historic structures and districts, gardens, waterways, and archaeological sites. In addition, her initiative made path-breaking activists of a group of women who transcended the confines of polite Victorian society to enter the territories of politics and law as well as fund-raising.
Addressing the pressing problem of Mount Vernon’s decaying buildings, she made the crucial decision that the Association would preserve every structure that had been on the estate during George Washington’s lifetime. She spent the Civil War years at her family’s Rosemont Plantation but came back to Mount Vernon in 1866 and remained deeply involved in the work there until retiring as Regent in 1874. Cunningham returned to Rosemont, where she died on May 1, 1875. Her remains were interred at the First Presbyterian Churchyard in Columbia.
Ann Pamela Cunningham: The Woman Who Saved Washington's Home
This is the story of Ann Pamela Cunningham, a woman who spent her life preserving George Washington's home and legacy.
The Mount Vernon Ladies' Association
The MVLA was the first national historic preservation organization and is the oldest women's patriotic society in the United States.
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