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. ANTIQUBS 904 .;.{' !r .' 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 because their 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.