The triumph of Flora: Womenand the Americanlandscap,1890-1935
BY DEBORAH NEVINS
'Adni"td't Pl'I.viewofGraycardens,theestateofRobertc.atrdADDaFig.l.'Vi€\rofthepergolaatGrayGardeDsinaphotographg"*itt (i868-1954) NassauCountt HiU, Bast HaEpton, ll"* vo"s fioi-nifi ii.ig"i th" ta[en ty.iiatG Gilmatr U""""i iiiiii, N'w vorlt MauieEdwards Helttitt collectiott' -graphsqarder between l9t4 and 1920.zr""ptx"liiii,-iii,*p'tgfl are by courtay ol thc Gardenclub ol Anertc4' New rotK Citt.
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HERErs A BRArNTEASER; Match the names of the women worked for some of the wealthiest families landscape-Beatrix architects with the landscapesthey de- in the country-Fricks, Vanderbilts, Rockefellers, signed. Jones Farrand, Marian Crugei Cof- Pratts-and they designed schools and universities fin, Florence Yoch, Ellen Biddle Shipman, Marjorie and worked on public highway projects, housing, Sewell Cautley; the Italian Renaissancegarden in and parks. The Architectural League of New York GeorgeCukor's f936 MGM movie Romeo and luliet; awardedirs gold medalin landscapearchitecture to Mrs. Herbert Hoover's garden at ihe White House; Ruth Dean in 1929, Marian Cruger Cofin in 1930, the sundial garden at Henry Francis du Pont's win- and Annette Hoyt Flanders in 1936. The work of terthur near Wilmington, Delaware; Longue Vue these women was illustrated in many of the impor- Gardensin New orleans; and the landscapingat the tant books on gardening in the 1920's and 1930's, Radburn housing development in Radburn, New and their designswere published in magazinesand Jersey.r in the yearbooks of the American Society of Land- Th6 landscape architects named above are today scaDeArchitects. largely unknown, yet they were among the most In terms of fame and influence in their time, outstanding in America before World War II. These women landscapearchitects were far ahead of their sisters in architecture,z no doubt in part because women and gardening, as opposed to women and DBBORAH NEVINS is arl architectural and landscapehistorian public who teacheslandscape history at Barnard college in New York building, were naturally connected in the city. she is also a garden designer. mind. It was all right to gjve a woman a commission for a garden but women were not supposedto know
APRIL1985 905 added to the sophistication of American gardening. A prejudice against physical contact with the soil persisted into the twentieth century, but there is undeniable evidence that many women did work among the plants. In 1923 Edith Tunis Sale noted that women had been the most important force in the creation of old Virginia gardens. "Once," she wrote, "they interchanged knowledge of one anoth- ers' gardensthrough letters and long, leisurely visits. Now thev make Garden Associations..,.'ra More- over, she continued, they move "among the box- bushes; they train the roses and tie the hollyhocks; they sow pansiesand candytuft and snapdragonand mignonette,they cut the dead away, they gather for bowls and vases.. . ." Exceptional women gardeners in the nineteenth century who could wield a pen as well as a hoe communicated their hard-won knowledge in de- scriptions of their own gardens. An early and popu- lar example was Anna Warner's Gardening by Myself of 7872.s The genre continued into the twentieth : and one of the finest was Anna Gilman Hill's Yearsol Gard.eningof 1938.Perhaps the mosr rtional and certainly the most beautifully such book was the Doet Celia Thaxter's Is- Garden of 1894.the vear of her death. Thax- ter's garden on Appledore, one of the Isles of Shoals off Portsmouth, New Hampshire, was painted by many artists who came to stay at her family's inn there. The most notable of these was Frederick Childe Hassam, who documented the garden in a se- ries of magnificent canvases executed between the 1880's and 1913 (see cover), and twenty-two of whose watercolors illustrated the first edition of .Ar1 rstana uarQefl. In her book Thaxter described in great detail what Pl.II. Viewof cray cardens. flowers she grew, where she planted them, and how she succeededin gardening with no help on a wind- swept New England island. The book includes de- scriptions that are outstanding not only for the ex- actness of their observations but also for their anything about construction. Moreovet a building poetry. Unequalled are word pictures such as this involves more money than a garden, and our society one describing poppies: "It is not enough that the traditionally has be6n reluctint to allow women til powdery anthers are orange bordered with gold; spend largd sums of someone else's money to exer- they are whirled about the very heart of the flower cise their creativity. like a revolving Catherine-wheelof fire."6 Thaxter's Yet, in spite of iheir importance, it is not surpris- garden was distinguished by her rejection of the ing that these women are now relatively obscure. Victorian system of planting annuals in strict geo- Except for Frederick Law Olmsted,indiviiiual Amer- metric lines in favor of a much more informal com- ican landscape architects have been insuficiently Dosition in which annuals and perennials were studied, and the work of women in the field hai mixed. Above all, she arranged the-flowers, both in been relatively unexplored.3 Norman Newton's De- her small garden and in the vases in her house, in sign on the Lanil of 1971 mentions only Marian massesof tones of a single color (see Pl. [I). Can- Cruger Cofin, Beatrix Jones Farrand, and Annette dace Wheeler, a leader of the arts and crafts move- Hoyt Flanders. Charles Platt is given an entire chap- ment and a visitor to Appledore, wrote of Thaxter's ter while Farrand's work. which was more subtle use of flowers: the "harmonic senseof the woman and brilliant, is not even analvzed. Farrand's Dum- and artist and poet thrilled through these long barton Oaks in Washington, I).C., is pictured twice chords of color and filled the room with an atmo- in Christopher Thacker's .F1is/oryof Gardens of 1979, sphere which made it seem like diving into a rain- but he never mentions that she designedthe estate, bow."' which is one of the jewels of American garden de- Among the knowledgeable amateurs writiirg on srgn. garden making in the twentieth century were Louisa It was not only professional.women who made a Yeomans King, Neltje Blanchan, Louise Beebe contribution to the American garden. The amateurs Wilder, and Helena Rutherfurd Ely, whose Woman's of the time wrote some of the best books and culti- Hardy Garden of 1903 Anna Gilmln Hill called the vated an ever-expandingcollection of plants, which one book "no beginner can do without."'Each of
906 ANTIQUES Pl.lll. The Room of Flowers' by -Frederick childe Hassam iiilif-risll, ies+.silned and dated at bottorlcente!, "childe ii"."a*-i!g+," oil oincanvas, 34 inches-square collectiotl^of Mr. afid Mrs- Atthur G Ahschul: photograph bi Ilelqa Ynoto nlu' dio.
907 APRILI985 ANTIQUES these women wrote several books, using botanical terms sparingly and _wdting in a light style which would appeal to, and therebv rnfluence,Other non- orofessi6ials, who were mainly women. Their Looks were compelling becausetheir observations on flowers and gardening were detailed in a way that only comesJrom firsthand experience.Louisa Yeomans King, tor example, could devote nearly four pages to describing the subtle variations in tonesbf Durple and violet among a group of lilacs in her Pagis lrom a Garden Notebook, published in 1921. In addition to information about Plants them- selves,these books communicated a consistentaes- Pl.IV View of The creeks, thetic-aDDroach to flower gardens which empha- the estateof Albert (1871-1950) sized the-use of perennials massedloosely in terms and Adele Herter, of composition and organized in great sweeps ot East Hampton, New York. the introduction in AdeleHerier laid out the gardens. color. fhis in turn stimulated America of gardens composed of tones of a single color. often i^rhite ot blue. Much of the imperus for lhis came from GertrudeJekyll (1843-1932) in Eng- land. who first published hei ideas on color in Wil- liam Robinson's English Fbwer Garden of 1883and iater in her own bdoks, most notably Colour in the Flower Garden of 1908. Louisa King's Well-Consid' eredCarden of 1915includes a preface by Jekyll and her Chroniclesof the Garden of 1925is dedicated to Jekvll. In 1919 the Garden Club of America pre- ienied Jekvll with a token of their appreciation for her workia token of $10,000! Clearly inspired by Jekyll, Mabel Cabot Sedgwick, a Bostoriian,used hi:r Ya-nkeeingenuity- and knowl- edge of gardening to create a marvel ot practicallty thit allowed anvone to compose a garden with a eiven color schdme-Iy're Garden Month by Month. Fublishedin 1907,it contajns445 densely-packed pases of lists of herbaceousplants arranged by the inJnth in which thev bloom and within each month by color. Height, pieJerred situation, the botanical aird gnslish names oI each plant, and a description of its c-olor are all provided. Almost every plant is siven a number which correspondsto a color on a Zhart of sixtv-threecolors tipped into the book.Also included are lists of bog plants, the best herbaceous olanrs,vines, climbers,and the like. Anna Gilman itill usedSedgwick's book "constantly"o Women who were practicing landscape.archltects also wrote important books on the subject. They Pl.V View ol the estaieof tended to empfiasizegarden designand composition H. Rodneysharp in wilmington, Delaware and raised issuesof spatial organizarionand aesthet- Marian Cruger Coftn (1876-1957) ics on a larger scale than their amateur counter- was the landscapearchitect. parts,but they too gavecolor an importantrole.'0 The most distinguished woman garden crltrc ot the period was Miriana Griswold Van Rensselaer (185i-1934), whose extremely influential Art Out-oJ- boors: Hinii on Good Tastein Gardening was pub- lished in 1893. with great insight and conciseness she could cut through the raging questionsin land- scapedesign of her day: formal or naturalistic?Ital- ianate, or French, or neither? Appropriatenesswas her measure.The naturalistic approach was clearly more felicitous for a rustic house or large park, while the formal approach was better for town gar- dens or gardens attached to grand houses whose architectural style was reminiscent ot historical
APRIL1985 909 Pl. VI. View of lhe gardensat Eugenedu Pont'sesrar€ in Green- ville, Delaware, in a photosraoh taken after 1929.Ellen Biddle Shipman (1869 -l950iwas ifi e iandscapearchitect.
Pl. VII. view of the estate of Mr. and Mrs. charles E. F. Mccann in oyster Bay, New York. Aonette Hoyt Flanders (1887-1946t, the landscape architect, was awarded the gold medal of the Architectural League of New York in 1933for this so-calledFrench garden.
910 ANTIQUES models. Above all it was the landscape architect's Creeks belonged to two artists, Adele and Albert task to create, as an artist would, "beautiful pic- Herter. Grosvenor Atterbury designed-H..te. the house in tures"" in which the lessonsof nature were applied 1898 and soon thereafter idele began her to the specific site and the requirements of the cli- garden, which included almost an acre of flower mate. For her, landscape design was an art like beds in a radiating composition,a rose-coveredper- painting in which color and composition were gola, and more naturalistic planting near the water's eoualliimportant. Theseideas came tb her, as to all edge. A garden of blue and lavender tones, planted ninete-enth-centurydesigners, from the English Pic- with iris, madonna lilies, foxglove, larkspur, aster, turesquein which one of the first definitions of the and bachelor's button was situated outside a room term picturesque meant to be like a picture (i.e. a decoratedin blue and white (Pl. IV), while red, sal- painting). mon, yellow, and gold flowers created another tonal The growing ranks of amateurs who read Mariana garden outside the front door, forecasting the apri- Van Rensselaer, Louisa Yeomans King, aad Helena cot satin in the entrv hall.r': Rutherfurd Ely included some exceptional garden Anna Gilman Hili and her husband bought Gray designers,whose work was singled out for its beauty Cardens (Pls. I, II) in 1913.Here Mrs. Hil] created a in the pe.iodicals of the era and, more importantly, garden'3 surrounded by high concrete walls to break in the books which surveyed the state of gardening the wind from the ocean nearby. She placed a per- at the time. The most important of these was Louise gola at one end to give the garden a focus and then 'planted Shelton'sBeautiful Gardensin America, published in softly colored flowers in profusion. The gar- 1915and revised in L924 and 1928.Among the gar- den was a triumph of pinks, blues, and grays that dens she included were The Creeks and Gray Gar- looked beautiful against rhe soft Easr Hampton light dens, both in East Hampton, Long Island. The and in the frequent mist. The plants she employed
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9t2 ANTIQUES and 1930's are fi1led with included Nepeta mussini, Stachys lanala, rosemary, Architects in the 1920's mentioned Santolina.Dianthus, Thalicturm, Phlox drummondii, sardens desisnedby the women already Pendelton,Nellie Al- and lupine-all classic plants used by Gertrude Je- is well as Rrith Dein,'' Isabella ien. Anne Baker,r' Katherine Bashford,to Hannah kyll'The ani her admirer_s. growing involvement of women in horticul- Chimplin, Helen Swift Jones,Mabel Keyes Babcock, House and ture an-dsardening raised the important question for Elean6r Roche, and Elizabeth Strang'" "Hall of Fame" in 1933" which women of the period of whether they should pursue Garden comliled a Clark,'r Annette Hoyt Flan- landscape desftn as professionals or remain ama- included Ae;es Selkirk Louise Payson, Ellen Biddle teurs. By the 1890's professio-nal-magazines were ders," RosE Greely,'5 women to enter the field as professionals. Shipman, and Romney Spring. It is a fascinating callins f6r photographers "rhei! is no reason," one declared in 1892, "why .ottrid.ritio.t that some of the best gardens of the era were women should not enter a calling that brings them who documented the Frances Benjamin the healthy life of the open air, if no hard man- women: Mattie Edwards Hewitt, inro Perretr, a sis- ual labor is deinanded.. . . Landsqape-gardeningis a Johnson,Clara Sipprell, and Antoinette Rehman. suitable emplovment."'' However, while courses ter of the landscapearchitect Elsa and successfuldesign- were ofiered ori the subject, at the end of the nine- The three mosf renowned Farrand, Ellen century there still were no schools or aca- ers of the era were Beatrix Jones teenth Comn. Except departments of landscape architecture, nor Biddle Shipman, and Marian Cruger demic group has not was theri a professional organization until the for Farrand, the work of the -be^en records tor Societv of Landscape Architects was studied in depth.'uNonetheless, extensive American success founded in New- York in 1899. Of its ten charter all three do 6xist; it appearsthat with their their Beatrix Jones (Farrand) was the only went a consciousefioii to save the records of members,'s photographs, woman. The need for education in the field careers. The importance of drawings, DromptedHarvard University and the Massachusetts institute of Technology to offer degree Progr-ams-in landscape architectuii beginning in 1900. The fol- lowins vear Mrs. Edward G. Low founded the Low- thorp6 School of LandscapeArchitecture and Horti- cultire for Women in Groton, Massachusetts;'5in PI.IX. The Mccann estate had several formal gardens con- established the Pennsylvania nicted by paths. This view shows-acorridor formed.by.a tall ev- 1910 Jane B. Haines (possibly and col- for Women in Ambler, Penn- ergreen hedgeon one side easlern red ceoar, School of Horticulture umns on the other. svlvania:and in 1915denry Atherton Frost and Bre- rier wiridden Pond established the Cambridge School of Architectural and Landscape Design for women in Cambridge,Massachusetts. The latter was of maior imDortance in the educarion of women in irchitlcture'and landscape architecture, and func- tioned until 1942, when Harvard began to admit women for the duration of the war. In its last years the Cambridge School was officially afiliated with Smith College." In l9l3 tio organizationswere formed to further women's mutual interests .in horticulture and gar- dening. The Women's National. Agricullural and Hortiiultural Associationwas made up of both ama- teurs and professionals.The Garden Club of Amer- ica did nof oficially limit its membership to women until the 1970's,but jn fact from the beginning its members were almost all women. Beatrix JonesFar- rand and Elizabeth Lee were made "Garden Consul- tants" to the organization,which still flourishes and Dromoteseducational programs and civic awareness of horticulture and gardening. Designers'succesi can in part be measuredby rhe freque;rcy with which their work is published in popular ieriodicals. The pagesof The HouseBeauti' ?ui. nout" and Garden, The Garilen Magazine, and ihe yearbooksof the American Society of Landscape
Pl. VIII. Another view of the Mccann estatein oyster BaY.
913 APRIL 1985 and correspondencewas unaji-restionablyrecognized University. Sargent gave her horticultural advice by Farrand, who purchasedGertrude Jekyll's draw- throughout her Iife and may have been helpful in ings and deposited them in the Collegeof Environ- obtaining some commissions for her. Farrand mental Design, University of California in Berkeley.,T opened an ofice in New York City in 1895.She de- Beatrix Jones Farrand was a New Yorker born signed many important private gardens and was a into the intellectual and social elite depicted in some consulting landscapearchitect to a number of iruti- of the novels of her aunt Edith Wharton. As a young turions,including Princeton University (1913 -1937), woman she was determined to pursue a career and Yale University (1924-1927), and Vassar College turned to landscape design. Undoubtedly, Edith (1926-1927). Her best known and most notable com- Wharton was an important influence in her life, for mission was the garden of Dumbarton Oaks in Mrs. Wharton had always been interested in ar- Washington,D.C. (Pl. X and Fig. 2), which she de- chitecture and landscape,and wrote The Decoration signed for Mildred Barnes and Robert Woods Bliss. of Houseswith Ogden Codman Jr. in 1897^nd ltalia.n Farrand worked at Dumbarton oaks between 1923 Villas and their Gard.ensin 1904.With no academic and 1933,during which time the original house was setting in which she could study, Farrand arranged substantially enlarged by Lawrence White of the to becomea student of CharlesSprague Sargent, the architectural firm of McKim. Mead and White. Far- first director of the Arnold Arboretum at Harvard rand was extremely meticulous and thorough in her
Fig.2. View of the ellipse at Dumbarton Oaks in Washinglon, D.C.Beatdx JonesFarrand (1872-1959)was the landscapearchi- tect for the esiaie,which belongedto Mildred Barnes and Robert wooos (rd/5-lyol, lJllss, the elllpse rs lormeo by pteacneo hornbeam. Photograph by Ursula Pariser, by courtes! of Dumbar- toft Oaks, Washingtoft, D.C., trustees t'or Harrard Uhbersit!.
9t4 ANTIQUES Pl, x. view of the pergola designedby Farrand at Dumbarton oaks. Pariserphotograph, b1 courtesy of Dumbatton oaks.
Fis.3. Plale from Jacques Androuet du cerceau's ,es Plrs E;celle ts Bastinents de France (1576-1579) showing the "Deambulationes," ot wooden galleries, at Mo targia. Photogrdph by the author
APRILI985 915 .+ ,,$,;?ft 4 ;i. -',+ 'rF '..!.1
Pl. XI. View of the garden on the estateof Samuel Sal- vage in New York State. Shipman was the landscape archrtect.
analysis of a design problem, sometimesmaking a in tones of white, pink, and lavender. There were tull-scale mock-up of a garden element such as a groves of pine and spruce, a rose terrace adjacent to wall in order to make sure that the proDortions the louse, a beautiful rock garden, and a perennial were exactly right. Her.taste and skill weri recog_ garoen. nrzecl_by -her cllents, and her opinion was often se- Farrand's garden of 1,926-1950 for Mr. and Mrs. cured before decisionswere made about the archi- John D. Rockefeller Jr. in Seal Harbor. Maine (P1. tectural designof a house. XII), was a brilliant designlike no other in American Farrand c-onsidereddesigning a natural garden gardening.After passingthrough the deep shadows more_dllicutt than designing a formal garden. It of paths lined with evergreens, one entered the very was .thelandscape architect's task in the natural -Na-gar_ large garden and was suddenly confronted with a den "to_try to kee-pstep with the great stride of sea of flowers, a meadow of modulated color. Was ture and copy as far as may be her breadth and sim_ it a formal garden or a meadow? Farrand was tak- plicity."r3 She brought the idea of the naturalistic ing the idea of the natural garden, planted con- garden point, to perfection at Reef her own estatein ventionally with woodland flowers and shrubs, and Bar Harbor, Maine. Almost the entire proDertv (see translating it into a formal flower garden of the PI. XIII) _wasa sea of naturalistjc p]ant'ine'of fieiih- most luxuriant sort. The special quality of this gar- ers, heaths, and.shrubs, p_articula;lyrosei and aza_ den was that in its eleganceit was also evocative of reas,the lafter planted in large sweepsof one color and appropriate for Maine.
916 ANTIQUES Fig.4. View of The Braes, the estate of Herbert L. Pmtt in 'Gle! Cove, New York, in a photograph by Hewitt. lsabella Pendelton was the landscape archi_ tect. X4sJ@trCoufllt Mu' seum,H e w itt colleclion.
Fis.5. view of the gardenand houseof the MissesPryne, Eas! Ellen Biddle Shipman practiced landscape ar- Himpton. New York, in a photograph raken by Hewitt Nass4u chitecture for nearly forty years. She attended Rad- CoutxyMuseum, Hewiu collection, cliffe College and later studied landscape design under the guidance of the painter, architect, and landscape designer Charles Platt, who summered near her in Pl;infield, New Hampshire.x' Shipman desienedlarae estates,such as Longue Vue Gardens in Niew Orleans for Mr. and Mrs. Edgar Stern, and wai financiallv successful.roShe was also capable of designingvery beautiful small -gardenstructures and casiios.ind ihe sometimesdid interior design work' ihe often worked with Platt as well as with rhe ar- chitect David Adler. Her most famous public project was the Six Mile Lake Shore Boulevard in Grosse Point, Michigan. Still another important commission was the series of formal rerraces ot the Saran r. Duke Gardens in Durham, North Carolina, com- 'Dleted in 1938. Shipman's work was usually quite formal. She *as a uerv qood horticulturisr and clearly was cre- ative in her ihoice and use of plants About 1926she designed a garden for William McCormick Blair in Lak; Bluff,- Illinois, for instance, in which she Dlanted pear trees within a semienclosed court and irad thein pruned and trained as thick columns which in flower and fruit would be spectacular.In most situations Shipman's work was nonhistorical, but in instances where the architecture recalled a soecificstvle she would design a garden appropriate ro it. one'example was the garden she desiguedfor the Spanish-styleSchley house of about 1924in Far Hills,-New Jeisey, which had an lberian feeling to harmonize with the house.
9t7 A?RIL I985
In 1904Marian Cruger Coffin completed her stud' ies in landscape architecture at the Massachusetts instirute of feihnology bur was unable to find work in the profession,almost certainly becauseshe was r *omin. She was a cousin of the Du Ponts and this connection may have helped her gain her first com- missions.In addition to her work at Henry Francis du Pont's estate,Winterthur, and other estates,she laid out the groundsof the Universityof Delawarein Newarkand rhe ColonelRobert Montgomery Collec- tion of Conifers at the New York Botanical Garden in the Bronx. The rose garden of the New York Bo- tanical Garden is still very close in plan to her de- sisns for it in 1953. Coffin also worked ar Con- nJcticut Collegein New London and at the Hopkins in New Haven, where she moved Grammar Sctiool 't'or in 1927.l{er onlv book, Treesand Shrubs Land- scapeEfrecrs (1940), suggests hundreds of beauriful .otirbitritions and is illustrated with many examples of her desisns. What did the work oI womenlandscape architects look like?ln generalit was stylisticallysimilar to the work of men at the time. However, women do seem to have been more involved with gardens in which herbaceousflowers took ce-nterstage, no doubt,at leasrin part becausemost of the gardenswomen de- sisnedwere in the domeslicrealm, rather than tor uiiversities or public buildings. ,,t Landscapedisign of the era representeda synthe- & sis of prin-cipleslearn-ed at the turn of the century i i.om an interesr in Iralian gardens,the ideals of Ger- {1r' and William Robinson about garden de- irude Jekvll"color, sien and and a respect for nature's beauty, *]lich *as the heritage of Frederick Law Olmsted's work at such sitesas .entral Park and ProspectPark in New York City. It was the designprinciples rarher than the stylis- tic and thematic details of Italian gardenswhich in- terested American landscapedesigners and critics.3' For them the most imPortantPrinciple was an em- nhasison the axial relationshipbetween a houseand irs gardenand the largerlandscape beyond. The ap- Dreciationof the Italianate garden meshed wIl.h in4arianaGriswold Van Rensselaer'sconviction that landscapearchitecture is an arl filled with opportu- ;iry foi "artistic quality" in which "color and com- poiition the landsiape-gardener'sresources."i' iler ideas".. were carried Torward by Farrand,-who wrote in 1907rhat the gardendesigner "musl know intimately the form and texture as well as the color of all thr! plants he uses; for plants are..to the -gar- dener *hat his palette is to a painter."3r Sunlight and shadow were important compositionalelements for Farrand and she admired the way ltalian Re- naissancedesigners considered "shadow as having the same value of accent as color.""
Pl. XlI. View of lhe gardenat The Eyrie, the estateof AbbyAldrich (1874-t948) andJohn D. (1874-1960)Rockefeller Jr', SealHarbor, Maine, in a Photograph of 1930-1935.Farrand was the landscapea.chitect.
919 Pl. XIII. View of the rock garden ai Reef Point, the estate of Beatlix and Max Fanand in Baa Harbor, Maine, in a Photograph takeDin the 1930's.
On large estates with imposing houses derived IX, X, Fig. 1). A statue, a large specimen tree, or a from historical precedents,these women included fountain might mark the end of an axis. Beatdx Far- one or more formal gardens near the house and rand's ellipse at Dumbarton Oaks is a magnificent more naturalistic gardens farther from the house. exampleof a garden room (Fig. 2). The formal gardens were often conceivedof as gar- There was little direct quotation of historical den rooms-that is, enclosedareas each with a spe- styles _on large. estates,-although motifs and ideas cific theme in terms of color or type of planting- ere borrowed from the past and reinterpreted. which were arranged on axes to each other and to Treillage was beautifully handled by Annette Hoyt the house and were connectedby a system of paths, Flandelsar the McCann estateon iong tsland (Pl. hedgelined green hallways, and pergolas (see Pls. VII), which won the Architectural League of New
920 ANTIQUES York's gold medal in 1933.The award cited it as a basic structure of trees and shrubs against which French garden, although it was not based on a spe- flowers might be added for effect in spring and cific French example. Sometimes an element in a summer. Farrand's garden for the Pierpont Morgan garden was derived more directly from a historical Librarv in New York Citv and her work at Yale, source. Farrand designed a pergola at Dumbarton Princeion, and other campuses are exemplary in Oaks (Pl. X) which is very close in designto a design these terins. At Yale and Princeton she clothed the for the wooden galleries surrounding the garden at walls with a variety of magnificent climbing plants Montargis that is illustrated in JacquesAndrouet du which provide interest throughout the academic Cerceau's PIus Excellents Bastiments de France of vear. and she planted trees and shrubs that soften 1576-1579(Fie. 3). Ellen Shipman developed a de- Lut do not obscurethe archirecturc. sign for a fence for the home of Mrs. Russell Alger The women who entered the profession of land- in York Harbor, Maine, that is based on a design scapearchitecture from the late 1890'sto the 1930's from GervaseMarkham's CountryFarm of 1615.35 haci to be strong-willed and determined since find- on smaller estates,particularly those with houses ing work and building a career were difficult tasks. in the style of the particular region, these women As one woman put it early in the twentieth century, gar- excelled in the creation of magnificent flower Not for one instantwill all this daunta womanto whom dens (Fig. 5) which all seemed to follow the Jekyl- landscapedesign is a masterpassion. To her, hardships lesque approach of modulated tones of a specific and responsibilitiesare but so manyspurs. She exultsin color. the demindsupon every power of mind-andbody. In other In urban areas and in institutional work, formal words,she is an artist, and, in so far as her art is con- gardens were the norm. They were designedwith a cerned,a willful fanatic.r'
Fis.6. BeatrixFarrand (center)and william Robinson(1868- l9l5) at Gmvetye Manor, Engfand. Unii,efiit! ol california, Berke- \ey, Collegeol Enoironftektal Desigft docurdents collection,
APRIL1985 With the exception of Plates II and x, the color photo- Club's invaluable collection of views of notable American graphs are reproduced from hand-painted glass slides in parks and gardens were taken between 1920 arLd1935. 1 the collection of the GardenClub of America, iII New York am most grateful to the Garden Club for their permission City. The nearly two thousand such slides in the Garden to publish someof theseslides:
' the correct pairinas of garden and designer are: Beahix Fatand aDd were workins as professionalsin the landscape aud architecture ffelds Mrs. Hoover's white House sardedj Ma.iatr co6n and the sundial ga.den (Cole, Frch Tipi to Skrtcraper, p. 82). Moreovet the school eltablished a at Winrerthuri Florence Yoch and Cukor's Rouro an.l luliet: Ellen Ship- network of women who would work for each other, collaborateon proj- man and Lonsue Vue ca.densj and Marjorie cautley and the Radburn ects, recommend each other for potential jobs, and suPPorl each other housing development. throughout thejr lives. !8Dean 'For information aboui women in Am€rican architecture, see Doris Cole, (d. 1932) wrote The Livabb do6e. Amons the projects she de- Ftoti Tipi to Sk scraper (Boston, 1973); and Susana Torte, ed., V'/omet in sisDedwere the Knickerbocke! Golf Club in Tenaay,New Jerser the es- American Archit.cture: A H+toric and Contempotury Perspectire \New tate of Ellis Phillips in Plandome, New York; the .oof garden of Mrs. York, 1977). Dodgesloan in New Yolk city; and the garden of F, A Mulford in Heinp rThe most importanr source for information on the achievements of women in landscape desisn and horticulture is cath€r'ne Brown's unpub- " Baker (1890-1949)sraduaied from vassar Collegein r9rz and from the thesis, "Women and the Land." see also Catherine Brown and Celia CambridgeSch@l. Between 1924 and 1938 she worked fo. Beatrix Far- lished 'A Newton Maddox, women and the Land Suitable Piof€ssion'," Iatd_ rand, but also on her own. Amons her own projectswas Foxd€n,the estate scaoe At.hitecture, M.ay 1982, pp.65-69i Donna Palme., "An overuiew of of H€len Morcenthau Fox, who wrote about sardeff. Bal
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