Ann Pamela Cunningham was an American founder and first Regent of the Mount Vernon Ladies’ Association of the Union.
Background
Ann Pamela Cunningham was born on August 15, 1816 at “Rosemont, ” Laurens County, South Carolina, the daughter of Robert and Louisa (Bird) Cunningham.
She came of distinguished ancestry on both sides, for the Cunninghams had been prominent in South Carolina for several generations, and the Birds people of importance in Pennsylvania.
Her father, a wealthy planter, was much given to hospitality, and took a prominent part in the life of his community.
Education
Ann was educated by a governess and at Barhamville Institute, near Columbia, South Carolina, and it is said “was remarkable for her precocious and brilliant girlhood. ”
Career
The idea of preserving Washington's home for future generations was suggested to her by her mother, who feared it might fall into the hands of speculators. Her first effort was a letter addressed to the women of the South published in the Charleston Mercury, December 2, 1853, and signed “A Southern Matron, ” a name which she used to hide her identity throughout the campaign.
In the same year she founded the Mount Vernon Ladies’ Association of the Union, of which she was elected Regent, with the purpose of raising $200, 000 for the purchase of Mount Vernon from the owner, John Augustine Washington.
A newspaper called The Mount Vernon Record was published, which gave details of the campaign, and committees were organized in various states. The public was hard to arouse and opposed to women attempting such a task, but Miss Cunningham was nothing daunted.
Meeting Edward Everett in Richmond in 1856, she won his support for the project, to which he eventually contributed $69, 064, the proceeds of his lecture on Washington delivered throughout the country. After many discouragements, the purchase was finally completed Feburary 22, 1859.
During the Civil War, Miss Cunningham remained in South Carolina, but from 1868 until her retirement in 1874, she lived at Mount Vernon in order personally to supervise the estate.
She died at “Rosemont, ” and was buried at Columbia, South Carolina, in the churchyard of the First Presbyterian Church.
Views
Quotations:
“None but God can know, ” she once said, “the mental labor and physical suffering Mount Vernon has cost me”.
Personality
In appearance Miss Cunningham was short, with a rather large head, well-rounded figure, auburn-brown hair, and expressive gray eyes. She was handicapped from her early youth by a severe spinal affection, caused by a fall from a horse. The long struggle to obtain a charter from the Virginia legislature so exhausted her that she went from one convulsion into another, and the lawyers had to wait until she was calm enough to receive them and sign the necessary papers. She travelled always under the greatest physical discomfort and pain.
She was of a shy, retiring disposition, and had a “horror of publicity for a lady—of her name appearing in the newspapers !”