Daughters of The American Revolution - References in Popular Culture

References in Popular Culture

• Grant Wood used the DAR as the subject for his 1932 painting Daughters of Revolution. At that time, he thought the group was characterized by elitism and class distinction.
• In the musical The Music Man, the lyrics to "Wells Fargo Wagon" include "The D.A.R. have sent a cannon for the courthouse square."
• In Sinclair Lewis's 1935 novel It Can't Happen Here, the DAR is generally portrayed as "composed of females who spend one half of their waking hours boasting of being descended from the seditious American colonists of 1776, and the other and more ardent half in attacking all contemporaries who believe in precisely the principles for which those ancestors struggled."
• In chapter 39 of Thomas Wolfe's novel You Can't Go Home Again (1940), the German character Franz Heilig lumps the DAR in with salon Communists, the Chamber of Commerce, and the American Legion. He said all were like the Nazi Party in repressing dissent.
• Abbey Bartlet, the first lady in the fictional television drama The West Wing, was a member of the DAR. (4×18—Privateers)
• A running joke in the movie The American President (1995) is that President Shepard (Michael Douglas) accidentally skipped a paragraph during a speech to the DAR, causing minor embarrassment to the White House.
• The fictional characters Emily and Rory Gilmore of the TV series Gilmore Girls are members of the DAR.
• The fictional character Lovey Howell of Gilligan's Island is a member of the DAR.
• The fictional character Margaret Houlihan of M*A*S*H is blackballed in the 1950s by her mother-in-law from being admitted as a member of the DAR.
• In the play The Glass Menagerie by Tennessee Williams, the character Amanda, who refers to her cultivate Southern past, is asked by her daughter if she attended the DAR meeting.
• At the end of Stan Freberg Presents The United States of America Volume One The Early Years, a member of the DAR (played by June Foray) attempts to lodge a protest about the recording.
• Phil Ochs's song "Love Me, I'm a Liberal" mentions "put down the old D.A.R, D.A.R.: that's the Dykes of the American Revolution."
• The Black Crowes have a song, "Goodbye Daughters of the Revolution".
• Walter Matthau's final line in Grumpy Old Men is, "The Daughters of the American Revolution are having a dance at the VFW Hall."
• In Pan Am, an historical TV series, the mother of the characters Kate and Laura Cameron, who are both stewardesses, belongs to the DAR.
• The band Jets to Brazil has the lyric "daughters of the revolution you're freezing in your furs" in the song "Lemon Yellow Black".
• The Chad Mitchell Trio song, "The John Birch Society," features the line: "Do you want Mrs. Khrushchev in there with the DAR?"