Nancy Van Dolsen, a native of Northwest Philadelphia, will start as the new Chief Executive Office of the Cliveden of the National Trust on July 8.
Van Dolsen has worked in museums and historic preservation for more than thirty years. She has written more than forty National Register nominations, contributed to books on regional architecture, and has taught Public History, Material Culture, Landscape Studies, and US History at North Carolina State University, University of Laval in Canada, and Barton College in Wilson, North Carolina. Prior to coming to the Cliveden, Van Dolsen worked as the executive director of the Imagination Station Science and History Museum in Wilson, where she helped increase visitation and broaden the museum’s programming for an all-ages audience.
In a statement, Van Dolsen said “I am delighted to return to Philadelphia and to the Germantown area, where I was born. My love of museums was founded during visits to the city’s historic sites, and to be able to work at one of the nation’s most important historic houses in my favorite city is truly a once in a lifetime opportunity.”
The Cliveden was the Germantown summer home of Benjamin Chew, colonial Chief Justice of Pennsylvania and head of one of the largest slave-holding families in Philadelphia. The property saw action during the American Revolutionary war as the site of the Battle of Germantown. In 1972, the Chew family transferred almost six acres of the property to the National Trust for Historic Preservation.