Great American Treasures

America's historic sites, homes, and public buildings are a living record of the

diverse ethnicities that, over four centuries, helped to build a growing nation. Since

1891, the National Society of the Colonial Dames of America (NSCDA) has actively

promoted our national heritage through historic preservation, restoration, and

the interpretation of historic sites across the United States. In conjunction with

NSCDA, in 2025 The Artist Book Foundation (TABF) will publish Great American

Treasures, a comprehensive survey of the architecture, furnishings, and gardens

that epitomize the nation's diverse material culture over more than 400 years.

The publication will feature the NSCDA's collection of historic places, which

span the sixteenth to the twentieth centuries, and will highlight the residences of

those who established themselves in America during this time. It will feature an

array of buildings that speak to the diversity of traditions, people, and architecture

in a growing nation-from English Georgian houses on the eastern seaboard to

a French Colonial dwelling in Missouri and mission houses in Hawai'i. This survey

illuminates the stories and material traditions of the wide range of individuals who

contributed to the founding of the United States and to the development of Ameri-

ca as a dynamic multicultural nation.

Many of the sites tell the stories of familiar historic figures like George and

Martha Washington, John Adams, James and Dolley Madison, John Quincy Ad-

ams, Benjamin Franklin, and George Mason. Other sites offer the narratives of fig-

ures who contributed to America's artistic heritage, such as John James Audubon

and John Smibert, or those who helped to shape the country's mercantile system,

like Frederick Van Cortlandt and James Logan. Some places were designed by

well-known architects such as Robert Mills or McKim, Mead & White, while most

were the work of unknown or little-known architects, builders, joiners, and slave la-

borers. The classic architecture of these sites, their exquisite furnishings and lush

gardens, and even the headstones in historic cemeteries all provide a window into

the rich diversity of men, women, and children-free, indentured, and enslaved-

who came together to build America.