Ann Pamela Cunningham

Ann Pamela Cunningham (August 15, 1816 in Rosemont Plantation, South Carolina – May 1, 1875) was an early activist in historic preservation who founded The Mount Vernon Ladies' Association in 1853 and served for years as its first regent.

The Association raised all the capital needed to complete its purchase of Mount Vernon by 1859 and took possession on February 22, Washington's birthday.

Ladies then rode sidesaddle, and she was disabled as a teenager from a riding accident, which caused her parents to seek medical help for her in Philadelphia.

Its owner at the time, John Augustine Washington Jr. revealed that speculators had offered him $300,000 for the property, and he had approached both Congress and Virginia's legislature to sell it and the surrounding 200 acres for $200,000, in order to preserved its public access.

She, former Massachusetts Governor Edward Everett and Sarah C. Tracy of Troy, New York with the help of Charleston attorney James Louis Petigru founded The Mount Vernon Ladies' Association, seeking representative women leaders from each of the 30 states in the union.