Daughters of the American Revolution

Marilyn. Chambers (xxx) was their most famous member.

I just became a Son of the American Revolution . It was the twats who got in trouble with Marion Anderson

They are like the pick a little talk a little women in THE MUSIC MAN.

Honestly, OP, sounds like you may know better than we do. And I'm kind of curious why your Mom joined, what the qualifications are, what she's expected to do now, if anything.

All I remember is that FDR once addressed their convention, and called them his fellow immigrants, which I don't think everyone there appreciated.

everyone will be quizzed at the 4 o'clock bell.

Didn’t Patti LuPone play one in some Mamet movie?

I just recently discovered an ancestor who fought in the Revolutionary War, which should make me eligible for the Sons of the American Revolution, but I think I'll pass unless there's free drinks and swag.

Not to be outdone, Southern women can "look away Dixieland" and join this group:

The video in R5 makes me a little sad, it was obviously filmed sometime in the mid-2000s, but the idea of middle-aged white ladies in jewel-toned blazers going to citizenship ceremonies to try and make immigrants feels welcomed to America seems like another world in 2024.

Service organizations were obviously not without their foibles and tribal politics, but I think many of them really helped foster a sense of good citizenship, personal belonging and duty to a larger community (including to those different than yourself) and so many of the cultural problems we face today are because a lot of people today don’t have those anchors in their lives.

R8, even in the South, the DAR is much more upscale and desirable of a membership. Most women in the DAR wouldn’t even fart in the general direction of. UDCer. The DAR still does work in the community whereas the UDC really only fights the removal of monuments on public property that they own.

The ne plus ultra of these organizations is the Society of the Cincinnati, which is for the male descendants of officers under Washington in the Continental Army and the French officers under Lafayette.

One of the Gilmore Girls was in DAR.

It was apparently a prestigious group to be in. It meant that your ancestors have been in this country forever.

😬

I have (at least) one Revolutionary War ancestor. Both sides of my family have been in Pennsylvania since the late 1600s.

It's not that hard to research your ancestry online: use familysearch.org. Yes, it's a Mormon site, but at least you don't have to pay to use it.

Does that make you eligible for DAR, senior lesbian? Are you the one who lives in a trailer park? Honestly, I think it would be awesome if somebody in a trailer park is also a member of the DAR. Shakes things up nicely.

My grandma had a friend who was a direct descendant of Priscilla Mullins and John Alden, the Brangelina of the Mayflower colony.

She would take me to Mayflower Society luncheons—always held at swank country clubs—when I was a kid. I loved it! The Mayflower bunch looked down on the DAR (though most belonged to that group, too) because Mayflower roots trump Revolutionary War.

The luncheons always would feature a historian as the speaker, and even as a little kid I found the talks deeply engaging.

My favorite part was when they’d do the roll call of the Mayflower passenger list. You’d stand when your ancestor’s name was called. There was one guy who was a criminal and hung after they landed in American. When they called his name no one would stand and then everyone would laugh. It was their little grim pilgrim joke.

One of those snobby orgs like the Junior League.

[quote] The Mayflower bunch looked down on the DAR (though most belonged to that group, too) because Mayflower roots trump Revolutionary War.

Which is hilarious in itself. The point of both was to get away from all that nonsense and try something new. But of course, it doesn't take long for everybody to start dreaming up little aristocracies of their own.

Also, don’t something like 30 million people have a Mayflower ancestor?

[quote]There was one guy who was a criminal and hung after they landed in American. When they called his name no one would stand and then everyone would laugh. It was their little grim pilgrim joke.

Ha! I love this!

My six-times great grandfather fought in the Revolutionary War. His surname is the same as my grandmother's maiden name.

But I'm not that interested in applying to be named a Son of the American Revolution.

Aren't they like the Daughters of the Confederacy?

Supposedly Richard Gere has ancestors who arrived on the Mayflower.

He always seemed a bit too ethnic to have Mayflower ancestry.

Love for sale.

These clubs were a way for women to be politically active before they were allowed the vote. They were able to influence text books and how our history was taught. While it is up to you to decide whether the version of history they advocated for was good or bad, it cannot be denied that they had a big influence on how America saw itself in the 20th century.

After women were allowed to vote, these societies all went into a slow decline and are now the domain of genealogy and history buffs along with a few who belong because their mothers did and they feel obligated.

I could be a member of the Society of the Cincinnati but they expect their members to give every year to support their nonprofit and I’m just not giving $1000 a year to get to go to cocktail hours with a bunch of golfers once a month.

Op are you Blanche Deveraux? If so you can’t join because you’re a Feldman

All of them, rejects from The Daughters of Fine Lineage !

Of course the DAR are most famous, or infamous, for denying singer Marion Anderson the use of their Constitution Hall for a recital in 1939. As a result many members of the organization dropped their affiliation with the group, among the First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt. With her support and that of President Roosevelt and the NAACP, the Secretary of Interior was asked to offer the Lincoln Memorial as a site for an open air concert. 75,000 people attended the concert on Easter Sunday, and it was broadcast nationally to millions.

The DAR had to do the walk of shame for decades afterwards, until they invited Leontyne Price to perform at their annual meeting in 1982. Miss Price promptly dedicated her performance to Marion Anderson.

Eat that, girls!