One of Delaware's most famous institutions is Winterthur, where founder Henry Francis DuPont collected and installed classic American interiors and created a naturalistic landscape in order to show visitors what a traditional country estate was like. A former employee and Delaware resident, John Sweeney, remembered the early years at Winterthur

In the beginning, Henry Francis DuPont intended the Winterthur tour experience to be small and intimate, with guides escorting only about four people at a time on an all-day tour, for a total of 20 visitors a day. Since there were no restaurants nearby, guests would have to eat at the site, and would be served lunch on pewter plates, with their guides serving as hostesses. But calls and reservations flooded the new museum immediately, and Director Charles Montgomery realized they needed to expand their tours.

Since there were few individuals knowledgeable about American decorative arts, Montgomery convinced DuPont and John Perkins, the President of the University of Delaware, to start a new graduate program. In 1952, with the help of a grant from the Rockefeller Foundation, the Winterthur Program in Early American Culture was started at the University. John Sweeney became part of the first class to graduate from the Program in 1954 and went on to serve as Associate Curator, Curator and Assistant to the Director of Winterthur. The Winterthur Program has become one of the premiere graduate programs in the country, while the Museum hosts over 200,000 visitors each year.