Continental Hall is a popular site for weddings and other events -- even prime-time television shows, commercials and movies have been filmed on its premises. Constitution Hall , which was built in , is the site of the annual DAR Continental Congress, or membership convention. Constitution Hall is currently the largest concert hall in Washington, D.
Crowds of nearly 4, people can gather here for events like graduations, concerts, gala dinners and more. The Administration Building holds offices for such necessary departments as membership and events scheduling. It is also home to the Americana Collection and the gallery of the museum. The museum, which charges no admission, also features one of the largest collections of quilts in the world. A smaller gallery, the DAR Americana Collection , features artifacts from the Revolutionary War and manuscripts, newspapers , books and other print items from early America.
As we've discussed, DAR has three main objectives: historic preservation, patriotism and education. The group achieves these goals many different ways. Here is a sampling of how they go about it:. In addition to these initiatives, DAR produces several publications.
American Spirit , DAR's official magazine, includes feature stories about historical topics, citizenship and education. A leaflet called National Defender is published monthly -- its topics focus on current issues. DAR may have its roots in the past, but it's working hard to keep up with the times. In the next section, we'll learn about DAR's most recent programs and goals. Like many social organizations, DAR is not without its controversies.
In , famous black contralto singer Marian Anderson was denied the opportunity to perform at Constitution Hall. At the time, Washington, D. DAR eventually welcomed Anderson to the stage at Constitution Hall six times, including for the launch of her farewell tour. In the s, a black woman named Lena Ferguson was denied membership in DAR even though she was a direct descendant of a white Revolutionary War patriot. Ferguson's protest over her treatment gained national attention.
DAR finally offered Ferguson membership, but she refused to join a chapter unless discrimination was barred completely within the organization. She also required the group to identify and publish the names of thousands of black patriots.
The group may be pushing years old, but DAR still considers itself active and vibrant. DAR's mission stays relevant by honoring the past but adapting to the interests and needs of its current members. President general Linda Gist Calvin says, "Our members carry on the timeless, important work of promoting historic preservation, education and patriotism that was set forth by the founders in , but also work hard to make the organization and its programs relevant to today's women.
Also, the Project Patriot Committee supports deployed members of the military and their families. In recognition of members' many time commitments, several chapters are shifting their meeting times. This allows more flexibility for working women and enables mothers of young children to attend chapter meetings. DAR's continued efforts to recognize once-forgotten Revolutionaries is evident in its recent research and publications.
The group is about to release the second expanded edition of its publication "Forgotten Patriots: African American and American Indian Patriots of the Revolutionary War.
And, it's not just the changing dynamic of its members and its society that DAR's efforts reflect: DAR is currently in the midst of a year project to restore and renovate the complex of historic buildings that make up National Headquarters. If you want to join an organization like DAR but your lineage only dates back to the Civil War era, don't fret.
There are so many ancestry-based groups that pretty much anyone can find one to join. Sign up for our Newsletter! Mobile Newsletter banner close. Mobile Newsletter chat close. Mobile Newsletter chat dots. Mobile Newsletter chat avatar. Mobile Newsletter chat subscribe. How the Daughters of the American Revolution Works. A Post-college Sorority?
Joining DAR " ". Mapping out your lineage. DAR provides a lot of resources for completing this daunting task. A genealogy worksheet and pedigree chart must be filled out and verified with legal documents. Each person must be validated with statements of birth, marriage and death. Past the first three generations, other proof may be used, including cemetery records, census records, tombstone inscriptions, will or probate records. I am a 25 year member.
My Dad is gone now. He left me my heritage. My desire is to pass this love of history on to my granddaughters. I have so many ancestors that fought for our freedom. I am an organizing member of the Chapter I belong to. I have such a great feeling when I come away from our meetings. I am the first in my family to do so. I'm working on my 4th application now. I love my family and ancestors, their example, and all they sacrificed for me.
Their rights ought always to be scrupulously regarded. Unless their actions are such as to violate the Constitution and seriously interfere with the rights of other States, they should be left to solve their own problem in their own way under the pressure of public opinion, rather than have outside authority step in to attempt to solve it for them.
If we are going to have local self-government with all of its advantages, we can not escape from some of its limitations. When authority is located afar off, it is necessarily less well informed, less sympathetic, and less responsive to public requirements. When it is close at hand, it is more likely to be executed publicly and in the public interest. Having a personal contact, it is more humane and more charitable.
On the other hand, rights can not be long preserved unless they are accompanied by a discharge of obligations. Our country to some extent tends to depart from these ideals. We are especially prone to call on the National Government to take over our burdens, and with them our freedom.
Through regulations and commissions we have given the most arbitrary authority over our actions and our property into the hands of a few men. Some of this has been necessary to prevent those who are weak from being overcome by those who are strong.
But it is a procedure fraught with considerable danger and should only be adopted as a last resort. There is one field, however, which belongs to the people, upon which they have uniformly insisted that the Federal Government should not trespass. That is the domain of private business. Society requires certain public activities, like highways and drainage, which are used in common and can best be provided by the Government.
But in general the country is best served through the competition of private enterprise. If the people are to remain politically free, they must be economically free. Their only hope in that direction is for them to keep their own business in their own hands. Our theory of society rests on a higher level than communism. We want the people to be the owners of their property in their own right. We recognize that they are all capitalists by nature. We want them to be all capitalists in fact.
That result is being approached rapidly. Our system is demonstrating by practice that it works. The theories which are advanced to entice the people in handing their private affairs over to the Government do not take into account all the facts.
The fundamental characteristics of humanity are not going to be changed by substituting Government action for private enterprise. The individual who manages the one, with all his imperfections and his selfishness, will have to be employed to manage the other. The very essence of business is the expectation of a profit on the part of those who conduct it. Government is conducted from an entirely different motive.
When business is in private hands, it is expected to be run for the benefit of the owner. When the Government steps in, the purchasers, users, and beneficiaries of what the Government undertakes to supply insist that the concern should be conducted for their benefit. It does not estimate selfishness; it simply transfer it in part from the seller to the purchaser. Under these conditions it ceases to be a real business, becomes lacking in enterprise and initiative, and does not have any motive to provide improved service.
Flowing out of these unavoidable conditions, if the Government gets into business on any large scale, we soon find that the beneficiaries attempt to play a large part in the control. While in theory it is to serve the public, in practice it will be very largely serving private interests. It comes to be regarded as a species of Government favor an those who are the most adroit get the large part of it. Men in public life are besought to secure places of employment for some persons in their locality and favorable contracts for others.
The situation rapidly develops into a position of intrenched selfishness, where a great body of public employees and large outside interests are in virtual control, with the general public paying a high cost for poor service.
With all the care that it is possible to exercise, a situation of this kind becomes entangled in favoritism an is always in great danger of causing corruption and scandal. If it is desirable to protect the people in their freedom and independence, if it is desirable to avoid the blighting effects of monopoly supported by the money of the taxpayer, if it is desirable to prevent the existence of a privileged class, if it is desirable to shield public officials from the influence of propaganda and the acute pressure of intrenched selfishness, if it is desirable to keep the Government unencumbered and clean, with an eye single to public service, we shall leave the conduct of our private business with the individual, where it belongs, and not undertake to unload it on the Government.
We shall constantly remember the society can not take any short cuts. It can not escape from itself. It can not get something for nothing. What it has, it must pay for. It can not shift, it can not dodge, it can not avoid meeting its own responsibilities.
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