With little to show but enthusiasm, the development staff at the National Constitution Center managed to fund a dream.

By Margaret Battistelli Gardner

Early fundraising was slow going, but the word eventually spread. And once the groundbreaking took place on Sept. 17, 2001, with former President Clinton on hand to ensure lots of publicity, things picked up.

“Until you put the shovels in the ground, you’re selling a dream, you’re selling a concept,” Seiter says. “We were still selling a dream, but now it looked like this was really going to happen.”