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A Publication of the Foundation for Landscape Studies A Journal of Place Volume xıııı | Number ıı | Spring 2019 Essays: Reviving the Past: Landscapes of History 3 Gardiner Hallock: Mulberry Row: Telling the Story of Slavery at Monticello Kenneth I. Helphand: Being There While Here Sara Cedar Miller: A Case of Mistaken Identity: A Historian’s Hunt for Buried Treasure Placemaker 14 George Crow: Louise Wrinkle Book Reviews 16 Ethan Carr: California Mission Landscapes: Race, Memory, and the Politics of Heritage By Elizabeth Kryder-Reid Paula Deitz: Oasis in the City: The Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Sculpture Garden at The Museum of Modern Art Edited by Peter Reed and Romy Silver-Kohn Elizabeth Hyde: American Eden: David Hosack, Botany, and Medicine in the Garden of the Early Republic By Victoria Johnson Awards 21 Contributors 23 Letter from the Editor ll landscapes ing uncritical reverence in Jefferson’s architectural In “A Case of Mistaken Garden Club of America are like palimp- those who visit them. At the marvel and the management Identity: A Historian’s who has brought the art of sests, showing same time, some monu- of Monticello’s plantation Hunt for Buried Treasure,” interpreting place to a high the marks and ments in public parks are economy, Hallock illumi- Central Park historian Sara level through the creation erasures of time. being reviled as symbols of nates the ways in which Cedar Miller writes about of an extraordinary garden AHistory becomes altered in racial discrimination. In its current custodians are two armed conflicts that are in Birmingham, Alabama. memory as each generation either case, reconsideration providing “a significant case associated with the northern You are invited to join us on interprets the past accord- of the implicit meanings of study on how museums and end of the park: the Ameri- May 8 at the Central Park ing to contemporary values. place and representations of historic sites can adapt their can Revolution and the Boathouse when we honor For this reason landscapes historical figures requires landscapes to confront the War of 1812. How did a can- Louise for her outstanding get layered with new new forms of interpretation. complexities of our histori- non and mortar that had achievement. designs, new uses, and new In this issue of Site/Lines, cal past.” once been displayed on the As always, I would like meanings. At the same time, essays around the theme In “Being There While site of Fort Clinton within to remind our readers that because of amnesia, indiffer- “Reviving the Past: Land- Here,” Kenneth Helphand the park end up in a storage the publication of Site/Lines ence, changing economics, scapes of History” explore discusses “the challenges facility on Randall’s Island – depends on reader support. and shifting cultural ethos, these issues. posed by anyone attempting and why had these mili- For this reason I urge you to representations of time and Gardiner Hallock’s to memorialize a tragedy – tary relics been put there send a discretionary con- place become vulnerable “Mulberry Row: Telling the whether famine, war, mur- to begin with? Recounting tribution to the Foundation to neglect or intentional Story of Slavery at Monti- der, or disease.” In several the work of archaeological for Landscape Studies in the destruction. cello” details the historic relevant examples he shows experts and colleagues at the enclosed envelope. Today historic com- facts behind the extensive, the reader how “some physi- Central Park Conservancy, memoration in the form of ongoing restoration of the cal designs can, indeed, Miller’s essay demonstrates With good green wishes, art, architecture, landscape log and stone structures ‘take’ you to another place.” the role tenacious detective design, and place preserva- in which enslaved men, According to Helphand, the work can play in rewriting tion is generating a good women, and children were most effective memorials the history of place. deal of controversy. Certain housed and worked as black- elicit a response that is a In his profile of Louise landmark sites continue to smiths, joiners, bricklayers, combination of both mind Agee Wrinkle, the Founda- Elizabeth Barlow Rogers be interpreted idealistically field hands, road builders, and heart. tion for Landscape Studies President with the intention of inspir- ditch diggers, tree planters, 2019 Place Maker award fence menders, domestic recipient and author of servants, and stable boys. Listen to the Land: Creat- In telling the backstory of ing a Southern Woodland the construction of Thomas Garden, George Crow lauds a former president of the On the Cover: The site of Thomas Jefferson’s Joiner’s Shop on Monticello’s Mulberry Row. Built around 1780, the chimney was recently stabilized as part of a decades-long project to expand the interpretation of Monticello’s enslaved community. ©Thomas Jefferson Foundation at Monticello. 2 Reviving the Past: Landscapes of History Mulberry Row: Telling the Story of Slavery at Monticello to Monticello to contemplate his personal and political life of the 607 men, women, and children he enslaved during n 1768, Thomas Jefferson paid local merchant and neighbor by touring the site’s immersive landscape and inspirational his lifetime. John Moore 180 bushels of wheat and 24 bushels of corn to architecture. After more than 180 years of private owner- Jefferson’s role as a leading Founding Father of his young create a level site for a grand house on a mountaintop in ship, Monticello formally became a museum in 1923 when nation was exceptional, but his status as a slave owner was Virginia’s fertile Piedmont. While enslaved workers hewed the Thomas Jefferson Foundation purchased the Mountain- typical. Much of Virginia’s wealth prior to the Civil War came into the dense red clay and living bedrock, the twenty- top. Visitation to the site grew rapidly in the years leading from the intensive cultivation of tobacco, and, eventually, Ifive-year-old Jefferson, a largely self-taught architect, drew up to the national bicentennial celebration and peaked with wheat on large plantations owned by a small group of promi- up plans for his future home. Famously, he would continue 671,000 people in 1976. In response to the growing numbers, nent families. At the center of these plantations was often a building and rebuilding Monticello for over fifty years. The restoration and interpretation efforts began to expand beyond main house surrounded by a tightly controlled landscape of house, with its Flemish-bond brick walls, cream-colored the main house to incorporate more of Jefferson’s wide- aesthetically and functionally arranged outbuildings, service classical details, and iconic dome served him throughout ranging interests. This deepening attention to the landscape yards, and gardens. The construction and maintenance of his life by reinforcing his national prominence and cultural surrounding the main house also shifted the historical focus these historic vernacular and designed landscapes was made sophistication. to uncomfortable truths about Jefferson and slavery. Jefferson, possible by the labor of enslaved workers. They cleared the Jefferson wished to be remembered for three principal the same man who wrote in the preamble to the Declaration fields, raised the buildings, leveled the terraces, constructed achievements – the Declaration of Independence, Virginia’s of Independence the words that would become the United the roads, planted the trees, and built the fences that created a Statutes of Religious Freedom, and the University of Vir- States’ aspirational vision and guiding philosophy, owed landscape rooted in English antecedents but heavily adapted ginia. But he was also a polymath, deeply interested in using his privileged lifestyle to profits made from the forced labor to the climate of Virginia. Jefferson’s Monticello may be his restless curiosity to elevate the taste and improve the economy of his young country. Agriculture, architecture, gar- dening, decorative arts, brewing, cooking, prison reform, history, politics, science, geography, natural history, and even the abolition of slavery fell within his purview. Visitors to Monticello have long been drawn to the house to learn more about these stories and experience a physical connec- tion to buildings and objects that relate to the founding of the United States. Similarly, the landscape surrounding the house – wide lawns, winding walks, and lovingly cultivated gardens and orchards – serves as a tangible link to Jefferson. Over the past four decades, however, one portion of his estate – a twelve hundred-foot-long, tree-lined road named Mulberry Row – has instead been adapted and restored to tell the stories of Monticello’s enslaved community. The recent work to reconstruct the buildings there, and the details of how this process has evolved, add up to a significant case study on how museums and historic sites can adapt their landscapes to confront the complexities of our historical past. Monticello has been a tourist attraction for almost two centuries. Even before Jefferson’s death in 1826, visitors came A digital reconstruction of the Monticello Mountaintop around 1816, created by RenderSphere, LLC. All images ©Thomas Jefferson Foundation at Monticello. 3 unique in many ways, but in this respect, it was no different A digital rendering of Monticello than the other large plantations scattered across Virginia. and Mulberry Row as it It was not until the late 1960s and 1970s that historians appeared in about 1816, created like John Chester Miller and Winthrop Jordan began to by RenderSphere, LLC. develop a new understanding of Jefferson and slavery. In the following decade, integrating Jefferson’s role as a slave holder smoke houses, dairy, and into the interpretation of his undeniably important politi- washhouse used to maintain cal and cultural contributions to the United States became a the Jeffersons’ life at Monti- long-term goal of the Thomas Jefferson Foundation. Slavery cello; and the workshops that began to find its way into the house tour, and members of the enabled Jefferson to build enslaved community started to be mentioned in exhibits.
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