1863 - US Women as Flower Girls.

Flowers are the mementoes of an earthly paradise. They are said to be “the alphabet of angels, whereby they write mysterious things”- the mysteries of God's love & goodness. Earth would be a wilderness without them. 

Girls sell flowers most profitably at opera houses, theatres, & other places of amusement. They buy of those who devote themselves to the raising of flowers, & arrange them into bouquets. A number dispose of flowers on Broadway; &, summer before last, I observed a French woman at the Atlantic ferry selling bouquets to people waiting for the boat. 

A florist told me he disposes of flowers to girls who make up bouquets & sell them. One of them pays $500 rent for her room. It yields a handsome profit when a person has a good stand. He would like a stand at the opera house, but a great many others are looking forward to it. Some pay for the privilege, .others obtain it by being known to the managers. 

I was told by a man who supplies bouquets that he pays to florists from $8 to $10 a day for flowers, & then makes up his own bouquets. I have been told that at some hotels in Germany, girls pass around the table at dinner, & give bouquets. Such recipients as feel disposed, pay a small sum. 

The Employments of Women: A Cyclopaedia of Woman's Work by Virginia Panny Published Boston, MA. by Walker, Wise & Company. 1863

To read about women's changing roles in the 19th century. see:
Boorstin, Daniel. The Americans: The Democratic Experience. New York:Random House, 1973.
Clinton, Catherine. The Other Civil War: American Women in the Nineteenth Century. New York: Hill and Wang, 1984.
Cott, Nancy. A Heritage of Her Own: Toward a New Social History of Women. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1979.
Cott Nancy. History of Women in the United States, Part 6, Working the Land. New York: K. G. Saur, 1992.
Degler, Carl. At Odds: Women and the Family from Revolution to the Present. New York: Oxford University Press, 1980.
Green, Harvey. The Light of the Home: An Intimate View of the Lives of Women in Victorian America. New York: Pantheon Books, 1983.
Juster, Norton. So Sweet to Labor: Rural Women in America 1865-1895. New York: The Viking Press, 1979.
Kessler-Harris, Alice. Out to Work: A History of Wage Earning Women in the United States. New York: Oxford University Press, 1982
Mintz, Stephen and Susan Kellogg. Domestic Revolutions: A Social History of American Family Life. New York: Free Press; London: Collier Macmillan, 1988.
Ryan, Mary P. Womanhood in America front he Colonial Times to the Present. New York: F. Watts, 1983.
Smith-Rosenberg, Caroll. Disorderly Conduct: Visions of Gender in Victorian America. New York: Oxford University Press, 1985.
Strasser, Susan. Never Done: A History of American Housework. New York Pantheon Books, 1982.
Welter, Barbara. Dimity Convictions : the American Woman in the Nineteenth Century. Athens : Ohio University Press, 1976.

Garden Design - The Evolution of the White House Gardens & Grounds

Tulip magnolias (Magnolia liliiflora) at the White House

Each spring, Washington DC comes alive with flowering trees.  Although the cherry blossoms will not be in their full glory until about the 2nd week of April, it is exciting to anticipate & to reflect on the evolution of the president's house & grounds in the nation's capital.  Each Spring, much attention is focused on America's National Cherry Blossom Festival which commemorates the 1912 gift of 3,000 cherry trees from Mayor Yukio Ozaki of Tokyo to the city.  In a simple ceremony on March 27, 1912, First Lady Helen Herron Taft & Viscountess Chinda, wife of the Japanese ambassador, planted the first 2 trees from Japan on the north bank of the Tidal Basin. In 1915, the United States Government reciprocated with a gift of flowering dogwood trees to the people of Japan.

Tulip magnolias (Magnolia liliiflora).

The gardens at the White House evolved slowly as the nation grew. Initially President Geoge Washington (1789–1797) chose French engineer & architect Pierre-Charles L'Enfant (1754-1825) to draw a plan of the city of Washington, envisioning a setting of terraced formal gardens descending to Tiber Creek.
1791 Thomas Jefferson, [Proposed Plan of Federal City], March 1791, Ink on paper, Thomas Jefferson Papers, Manuscript Division Library of Congress.

When Washington & L'Enfant mapped out the "President's Park," in 1791, Washington sketched reflecting pools & terraced gardens falling toward the water from an executive palace rivaling Versailles on 82 acres. When finally completed, the White House was about a quarter of the size L'Enfant dreamed of, but gardens would surround the residence.
1792 Pierre Charles L'Enfant, Plan of the City of Washington, March 1792, Library of Congress

Washington expressed a desire to plant an American species botanical garden. To expand the grounds around the proposed White House, Washington purchased the land for what is now the South lawn from a tobacco planter named Davy Burns, while the North grounds originally belonged to the Pierce family before falling into the hands of speculators.

The cornerstone of the President’s House was laid October 13, 1792. When the White House was first occupied in 1800, the site of the South Lawn was an open meadow gradually descending to a large marsh, the Tiber Creek, & to the Potomac River beyond.
c 1793 Elevation of the north side of the White House, by James Hoban. Maryland Historical Society.

After Washington dismissed L’Enfant, the design of the White House was thrown open to an architectural competition in 1792. James Hoban (1758–1831), an Irish-born & trained architect then living in Charleston, South Carolina, won the design competition for the White House. Hoban immigrated to the United States working as an architect & builder in Philadelphia & Charleston, from 1785 until his move to the nation’s capital in 1792.
1800 Etching of Original design of White House. Library of Congress.

When John Adams (1797–1801), the 1st President to live in Hoban's proposed mansion, moved into the house in 1800, one Washingtonian wrote that the grounds were "at present in great confusion, having on it old brick kilns, pits to contain water used by the brick makers."
1803 White House by Nicholas King in the Huntington Library, San Marino, California.

One of practical President Adam's first suggestions was to plant a vegetable garden to cut the growing food bill for the White House. Unfortunately Adams had headed back home, before his garden was planted.
c 1804 Jefferson's White House. Library of Congress.

Benjamin Latrobe (1764-1820) noted in 1803, "The surrounding Ground was chiefly used for Brick yards, it was enclosed in a rough post and rail fence." Presidents were faced with a scraggly, unpromising vista of tobacco-depleted clay soil scattered with abandoned workers' cottages bordered by a malarial swamp. The greatest majority of presidential landscaping efforts would be consumed with grading & filling projects throughout the 19th century.
1807 (1824) Benjamin Henry Latrobe's South Face Proposal to Jefferson. Library of Congress.

In 1801, President Thomas Jefferson (1801-09) began planning improvements for the White House gardens & grounds, including a stone wall around the house. Jefferson, who was always arranging & rearranging the grounds at Monticello, was the first president to devise an overall landscape plan for the grounds. The plan included a fence, as well as grading & planting the south grounds for more privacy. Jefferson kept geraniums, strawberries, figs and orange trees in pots & boxes in the windows of his office.

We learn from Margaret Bayard Smith's diary, published in 1906, the Jefferson "was very anxious to improve the ground around the President's House; but as Congress would make no appropriation for this and similar objects, he was obliged to abandon the idea, and content himself with enclosing it with a common stone wall and sewing it down in grass. Afterwards when the Grisly Bears, brought by Capt Lewis from the far west, (where he had been to explore the course of the Missouri,) were confined within this enclosure, a witty federalist called it the President's bear-garden." 
1807 (1824) Plans for the White House East Front by Benjamin Henry Latrobe in 1807. Library of Congress.

Jefferson wanted groves of trees, and he picked the location for the flower garden. Fences & walls were eventually built, where he had specified. He also directed the planting of numerous trees between 1802 -1806.  Smith wrote that "Jefferson's design to have planted them exclusively with trees, shrubs and flowers indigenous to our native soil. He had a long list made out in which they were arranged according to their forms and colours and the seasons in which they flourished. To him it would have been a high gratification to have improved and ornamented our infant City. But the only thing he could effect, was planting Pennsylvania Avenue with Lombard Poplars, which he designed only for a temporary shade, until Willow oaks, (a favorite tree of his) could attain a sufficient size. But this plan had to be relinquished as well as many others from the want of funds."

Jefferson completed grading of the South Lawn, building up mounds on either side of a central lawn, similar to the 100-foot diameter mounds he built at his villa retreat Poplar Forest for his retirement in 1809.
1807 Charles Jensen. Stranger in America. Frontispiece. Library of Congress.

President Jefferson & his surveyor of public buildings, Benjamin Latrobe located a triumphal arch as a main entry point to the grounds, just southeast of the White House. Jefferson's arc of triumph was flanked by two memorial weeping willow trees. “No occupation is so delightful to me as the culture of the earth ... but though an old man, I am but a young gardener," he wrote to a friend from his Poplar Forest retreat in 1811.
1807 Latrobe White House Library of Congress.

William Stebbins described the grounds around the White House in Washington D. C. in 1810, "Extended my walk alone to the President's house: -- a handsome edifice, tho' like the capitol of free stone: the south yard principally made ground, bank'd up by a common stone wall: a plain picket fence on each side, the passage way to the house on the north: --some of the pickets lying on the ground."

1810 Etching of the White House

Hostilities with Great Britain, begun in 1812, culminated in the invasion of Washington on August 24, 1814. British troops entered the defenseless city; ate a dinner prepared for the fleeing President at the White House; and then torched the building, destroying all but the outer walls and most of the plantings.

Paul Jennings, President James Madison's (1809–1817) personal slave who witnessed the burning, reports that it was the Madison's White House gardener, and not Dolley Madison who saved the portrait of George Washington from burning with the White House.

Jennings wrote, "It has often been stated in print, that when Mrs. Madison escaped from the White House, she cut out from the frame the large portrait of Washington (now in one of the parlors there), and carried it off. This is totally false. She had no time for doing it. It would have required a ladder to get it down. All she carried off was the silver in her reticule, as the British were thought to be but a few squares off, and were expected every moment.

John Susé (a Frenchman, then door-keeper, and still living) and Magraw, the President's gardener, took it down and sent it off on a wagon, with some large silver urns and such other valuables as could be hastily got hold of. When the British did arrive, they ate up the very dinner, and drank the wines, &c., that I had prepared for the President's party."
Jefferson's 1809 Poplar Forest with earthen mounds planted with trees subsituting for traditonal pavilions and lines of trees forming Palladian“wings” or “hyphens.”

At the urging of James Madison, Congress decided to rebuild rather than move the capital to another city. Hoban returned to reconstruct the President’s House, as it had been before the fire. President James Monroe (1817–1825) moved into a new house in the autumn of 1817.

While the White House was being rebuilt after the 1814 fire, James Monroe increased tree plantings on the grounds based on plans by architect Charles Bulfinch. Monroe (1817–25) named the first "Gardener to the President of the United States," Charles Bizet, giving him a salary of $450 a year.

When Bizet left the White House, he went to work for James Madsion at his private home Montpelier where he was paid $700 a year. A number of President Madison's slaves were trained as assistant gardeners, one of whom took over as head gardener, when Bizet returned home to France. Madison's garden contained a mixture of vegetables, fruit trees, flowers, & ornamental shrubs.

Mary Cutts, Dolley Madison's niece, left a description of Madison's Montpelier garden, "At some distance from the house was the garden laid off in the shape of a horseshoe by an experienced French gardener, who lived many years on the place; his name was Beazee; he and his wife came to Virginia at the time of the French Revolution and left Mr. Madison shortly before his death to return to "La belle France." They were great favorites with the negroes, some of whom they taught to speak French. Madame Beazee contrived a hat to shade Mrs. Madison's eyes; it was hideous, but she liked it and when she took her morning rambles always called for her "Beazee bonet."

"The choicest fruits, especially pears, were raised in abundance, figs bore their two crops every summer, which Mr. Madison liked to gather himself arbors of grapes, over which he exercised the same authority. It was a paradise of roses and other flowers, to say nothing of the strawberries, and vegetables; every rare plant and fruit was sent to him by his admiring friends, who knew his taste, and they were carefully studied and reared by the gardener and his black aids."
1814 White House on Fire. William Strickland, engraver. Library of Congress.

The front of the White House was used as a common for fairs & parades until 1822, when Pennsylvania the avenue was cut through the north side of the President’s Park & soon after a public park was established.
1814 A view of the president's house in the city of Washington after the conflagration of the 24th of August 1814. Library of Congress.

The federal government used Charles Bulfinch’s (1763–1844) planting scheme for a thick grove of trees for the square north of the White House & named the park in honor of General Lafayette in 1824-1825.
1818 Robert King, A Map of the City of Washington in the District of Columbia, Library of Congress.

When John Quincy Adams followed Monroe into office 1825-1829, he replaced gardener Bizet with John Ousley, who remained the White House gardener for the next 27 years. Adams was the first President to actually develop the flower gardens, that Jefferson had earlier plotted out.

1820 Painted depiction of the south face Baroness Hyde de Neuville

Instead of using seedlings as Jefferson had for his groves, Adams was first to plant ornamental trees. As an avid gardener himself, Adams personally enjoyed planting seedlings that included fruit trees, herbs & vegetables.

Washington City, 1820 Baroness Hyde Neuville.

In the summer of 1827, the president wrote in his diary, "In this small garden of not less than two acres there are forest and fruit trees, shrubs, hedges, (succulent) vegetables, kitchen and medicinal herbs, hothouse plants, flowers and weeds to the amount I conjecture of at least one thousand."

1820 The White House in 1820, a painting by George Catlin.

Adams himself planted herbs & vegetables, & after Congress passed a resolution to encourage planting mulberry trees as a way of fostering a silkworm industry, he planted a white mulberry on the White House grounds determined to nurture silkworms. While a U.S. silk industry never took root, one of Adams' plantings did, surviving until 1990.

1822 Illustration of the White House (New York Public Library)

Adams, who had served abroad as a diplomat, solicited plant specimens from consulates around the world as well as planting the 5 varieties of oak native to D.C. Adams was attracted to the idea of establishing a collection of uniquely American species on the grounds.

1830s Detail of Lithograph by D. W. Kellog & Co. Library of Congress.

During the 1830's President Andrew Jackson (1829–1837) became a big supporter of the White House gardens hiring several laborers to assist White House gardener John Ousley. During Jackson's term elm, maple, & sycamore trees were planted for the first time. He had walks laid out among garden beds filled with foxglove, dragonhead, sweet William and daisies.

1833 Painted depiction of the south face of the White House

The famous Jackson magnolias were added to the White House grounds in 1835, which he planted in honor of his wife Rachel, who died shortly before he took office in 1829. The oldest surviving trees on the property now are those two southern magnolias (Magnolia grandiflora) at the east end of what is now the Rose Garden.
About this time, square & rectangular garden beds were no longer in fashion. They could be oval, circle, diamond, star, crescent, or any shape other than a rectangle or square. Flowers were planted for their botanical significance.

Reportedly Jackson enjoyed naked morning dips in the Potomac, followed by weeding in the his garden. Perhaps because he actually worked in the White House gardens, Jackson spared no expense in providing house gardeners with the best grub hoes & mole traps, and it was during Jackson's term that the grounds began to look presentable.

In 1835, after a fire at Mount Vernon, George Washington's descendants presented Jackson with a feather palm that the first president had grown from seed. Jackson built an orangery to store the memorial plant. Citrus fruits for medicinal & culinary purposes shared the warm new space with pots of camellias, which were brought in to decorate White House parties.

Politics invaded the garden during Martin Van Buren's term from 1837 to 1841. Leafing through White House bills, Rep. Charles Ogle of Pennsylvania declared that Van Buren had been busy "constructing fountains, paving footways, planting, transplanting, pruning and dressing horse chestnuts, lindens, beds and borders, training and irrigating honey suckles, trumpet creepers, primroses, lady slippers...and preparing beautiful bouquets for the palace saloons."
1848 August Kollner (1813-1906) The President's House showing the statue.

President James K. Polk (1845–1849) placed a bronze statue of Thomas Jefferson by P. J. David d'Angers on the North Lawn in 1848, where it stood for 27 years before being moved to the Capitol. Polk saw a parallel between himself & the earlier expansionist. The statue stood in the center of the lawn, which was cut regularly & rolled & seasonally decorated with flower beds. Cut off from the driveway by a fence, this small garden was open to the public every day.
1846 First Known Photo of the White House

John Watt was appointed "Gardener for the Kitchen garden belonging to the Presidents House" in 1852. Two years later, in May 1854, he was given control over all the laborers on the grounds of the Presidential Mansion, causing the Public Gardener to entreat the Commissioner of Public Buildings and Parks to write Congress to fund additional staff.

"... having ascertained that Mr. Watt was the most competent person to take charge of the grounds around the President's Mansion, I appointed him to that duty, he still receiving only the pay of a laborer [$40 month]. This involved the necessity of dividing the force under Mr. Maher (the Public Gardener). Nine of the men were left under him, and the other six were placed under Mr. Watt."

1855 The north face with iron fence and statue of Thomas Jefferson (Library of Congress - Bohn's Hand Book of Washington)

Beginning in the term of President Franklin Pierce (1853–57), the president's expanding hothouses were emblematic of the nations's indoor gardening craze, eventually spilling over with the botanical specimins from Commodore Perry's adventures in China and Japan.

1860 The south grounds, showing the first greenhouse, built on the west terrace in 1857. Historical Society of Washington, D.C.

In 1850, the noted landscape gardener Andrew Jackson Downing (1815–1852) developed a landscape plan for the President’s House & the Mall. He attempted to soften the geometry of the L'Enfant plan, incorporating a semicircular southern boundary & some serpentine paths. He enlarged the South Lawn, creating a large circular ground he named the "Parade or President's Park" borderd by densely planted shrubs and trees.

Gardener Watt ran into some controversy just as the Civil War was heating up. He became friends with Mary Todd Lincoln and agreed to help her hide some of her excessive spending by inflating the gardening bills he charged to the government to such an extent that the president had to be informed. Lincoln was incensed, refunded his wife's excesses, and fired Watts in early 1862.

1881 Etching of the north face of the White House

In 1867, garden responsibilities for the White House were transfered to the US Army Corps of Engineers. By 1871, Downing's plan for tree planting was initiated, as Ulysses S. Grant extends the grounds south beyond Jefferson's stone wall and had a great round pool dug into the South Lawn.

1890 The White House

After the Civil War, Julia Grant began the tradition of White House garden parties. She substituted floral bouquets for social calls. Her husband added a billiard room between the greenhouse and the mansion. But the gardens surrounding the White House today evolved from Downing's earlier plans.
1890 Photo of the Proliferation of Greenhouses at the White House during the 19th Century.

Hundreds of trees were planted under Rutherford B. Hayes, who initiated the tradition of plantings commemorative trees to represent each President and state. Hayes employed Henry Pfister as his gardener. Pfister remainded through the early 20th century, helping Edith Roosevelt design and install a colonial style garden.

1900 Hand-tinted photo of the White House north face

1863 - US Women as Florists in the USA

Jean Frederic Bazille (French Impressionist Painter, 1841-1870) Woman Preparing Flower Arrangement

1863 American Women as Florists. The rearing of flowers has ever been a charming pastime to many of our sex. When the pleasure can be combined with profit, it is well. The cultivation of flowers is a taste whose beneficial results are not sufficiently appreciated. When the cares & troubles of life begin to press upon men & women, they are apt to neglect the cultivation of flowers, when it might absorb some of the cares that burden their hearts.

Vines, roses, & ornamental fruit trees cost but a small sum, & yet how much they add to the beauty & comfort of a place! Most of the choice roses of our country are from cuttings imported from France. They are brought over in jars. Many, of course, die on the voyage. The variety is very great.

The selling of roots, plants, & bouquets is quite remunerative in some places. Much depends on the knowledge & skill of the fiorist, the location of his gardens, & the fondness of the people in the community for flowers. It is a delightful business for a lady, if she has men to do the planting, digging, & other hard work.

Jean Frederic Bazille (French Impressionist Painter, 1841-1870) Woman Preparing Flower Arrangement

In Paris, there is a market devoted to the sale of flowers. In most of the markets of our large cities, are exposed for sale pot plants & bouquets, also shrubs & evergreens. A florist told me that he employs two women in winter to make up bouquets & wreaths for ladies going to evening & dinner parties, concerts, & other places of amusement. It requires taste & ingenuity. He pays each $5 per week. They can make up wreaths to look like artificial flowers.

A woman on Long Island makes a living by raising flowers that are sold in New York. I was told that some lady has established a horticultural school on Long Island. Florists in & near cemeteries are apt to find sale for flowers & plants. Hence it is common to observe gardens & hot houses so located. I rode out to a florist's near Brooklyn. He says the business is not so good as it was, because the Germans in Hoboken raise flowers & sell bouquets for sixpence that he could not sell for twentyfive cents. The man does not send bouquets to the city, as it does not pay. Their profits are mostly derived from the sale of choice fruit trees raised at Flushing. They sell bouquets at their hot houses from a shilling up to $5.

They derive most profit from flowers in winter. A florist's occupation is healthy, & affords much pleasure to one fond of flowers. Yet it requires close attention to business. In England it was formerly customary to serve a seven-years' apprenticeship at the business, but three or four years will answer very well, if an individual gives undivided attention to his business, & is with a superior florist. A knowledge of botany is necessary to a florist. It requires considerable taste to make up a bouquet, & therefore is very appropriate to women. A knowledge of colors & their artistic arrangement is essential; also a natural taste for flowers, & some patience. Making bouquets, wreaths, &c., is slow work. The stems of flowers for bouquets are cut very short, as most of the nutriment of the stem is lost to the succeeding ones by cutting long ones. Artificial stems are added to the natural ones, & are usually made of broom straw or ravelled matting.

Mrs. F., the wife of a florist, says the wives of most florists assist their husbands in making up bouquets, wreaths, & baskets. She thinks, if a florist had enough to do to employ a lady, he would pay her $3 or $4 a week. She, has often thought a small volume might be written on the flower business in New York. She says no one has an idea of the amount of money expended for flowers. Mr. D. used to send out $1,000 worth of flowers on New Year's morning. It is a very irregular employment. Some days she sells a great many for balls, parties, & funerals.

 One might learn to make bouquets, if they have taste & judgment, by a few months' practice. The flowers that are sold at different seasons vary greatly, & the value of them depends much on their age. Mrs. F. has sold a few baskets of flowers at $50 apiece. She sells many flowers for Roman Catholic churches about Easter. Mrs. R. says florists prefer to have men, because they can work in the garden or green house when not cutting or putting up flowers.

The Germans have run the business down in New York. A florist named Flower writes: “We employ from two to four women tying buds, hoeing, weeding, &c.; in winter they help about grafting. They are paid fifty cents a day, of ten hours. Women so employed are German born. The employment is healthy. Men get seventyfive cents a day, as they can do more work; but the principal reason for employing women is, that we can hire them cheaper & like them better for light work. Women could do all parts of our business, if they had a fair chance with men, & would improve the chance. One year would give a general knowledge, but five would be better. A good, sound constitution, & industrious habits, are the best qualifications. Women that want such work can find plenty of it; but outdoor work is too hard for American women.” Another florist writes : “In Europe, where women are sometimes employed in fruit or vegetable gardens, their wages are usually about half a man's. Women (chiefly Germans) are employed in this country by farmers to pick fruit, vegetables, &c., by the quantity. At light work, done by contract, women, I believe, can make as much as men. Several years would be necessary to learn the business ; some branches of it might be learned in a few weeks. The requisite most needed for women to work in green houses, is a change of fashion. Their dress unfits them altogether for moving about in crowded plant houses. Were their dress similar to the men's, I see no reason why they would not be equally useful in other departments as well as this. If that should ever happen, they would, in my opinion, be worth as much as men; for the work is mostly light, & ladies, having a natural taste for flowers, would soon learn it. If you have gone through green houses, you cannot but know the difficulty of doing so without breaking everything. Men, at this kind of work, are not fully employed in winter.” A lady florist writes: “I sometimes  think my nervous excitability is to some extent caused by an excess of electricity, derived from the earth or flowers with which I work."

The Employments of Women: A Cyclopaedia of Woman's Work by Virginia Panny Published Boston, MA. by Walker, Wise & Company. 1863

To read about women's changing roles in the 2nd half of the 19th century. see:
Boorstin, Daniel. The Americans: The Democratic Experience. New York:Random House, 1973.
Clinton, Catherine. The Other Civil War: American Women in the Nineteenth Century. New York: Hill and Wang, 1984.
Cott, Nancy. A Heritage of Her Own: Toward a New Social History of Women. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1979.
Cott Nancy. History of Women in the United States, Part 6, Working the Land. New York: K. G. Saur, 1992.
Degler, Carl. At Odds: Women and the Family from Revolution to the Present. New York: Oxford University Press, 1980.
Green, Harvey. The Light of the Home: An Intimate View of the Lives of Women in Victorian America. New York: Pantheon Books, 1983.
Juster, Norton. So Sweet to Labor: Rural Women in America 1865-1895. New York: The Viking Press, 1979.
Kessler-Harris, Alice. Out to Work: A History of Wage Earning Women in the United States. New York: Oxford University Press, 1982
Mintz, Stephen and Susan Kellogg. Domestic Revolutions: A Social History of American Family Life. New York: Free Press; London: Collier Macmillan, 1988.
Ryan, Mary P. Womanhood in America front he Colonial Times to the Present. New York: F. Watts, 1983.
Smith-Rosenberg, Caroll. Disorderly Conduct: Visions of Gender in Victorian America. New York: Oxford University Press, 1985.
Strasser, Susan. Never Done: A History of American Housework. New York Pantheon Books, 1982.
Welter, Barbara. Dimity Convictions : the American Woman in the Nineteenth Century. Athens : Ohio University Press, 1976.

Charles Bullfinch (1763-1844) Third Architect of the Capital & Grounds

Charles Bullfinch by Mather Brown (1761-1831) Harvard University Portrait Collection

The Cultural Landscape Foundation tells us that Charles Bullfinch (1763-1844) was born in Boston, Massachusetts, Bulfinch was largely responsible for introducing the Adam style of architecture into the United States. He attended high school at Boston Latin School, studied Mathematics & Perspective at Harvard College from 1778 to 1781, & received a Master’s degree in 1784. The following year he embarked on a two-year tour of Europe, studying European buildings using an itinerary developed by Thomas Jefferson.  

The first building Bulfinch designed was the Hollis Street Church in Boston (1788). Subsequent projects include several New England residences, the Connecticut State House in Hartford (1792-1796) (now the city hall), the Massachusetts State House (1795-1798), an addition to Faneuil Hall which doubled its width & added a third story (1805-1806), University Hall in Harvard Yard at Harvard University (1813), & a classical-style capitol building for Maine (1828-1831), as well as a site plan for its immediate grounds (1838).  

He was appointed the Third Architect of the Capitol in 1818, a position he held until the office was abolished in 1829 upon the completion of the Capitol. During his tenure, Bulfinch continued the restoration of the two wings, which reopened in 1819; designed the domed center building, overseeing its construction from 1818 to 1826; & planned the Capitol Grounds & original west terraces. 

After its completion he retired to Boston. From 1791 to 1795 & 1799 to 1817, Bulfinch was a member of the Boston Board of Selectmen, directing the improvement of the local street system & of Boston Common & its surroundings. Bulfinch died in Boston at the age of 80.

The Evolution of the US Capitol gardens & grounds in Washington DC

Cherry Blossoms at the United States Capitol Building

Each spring, America's National Cherry Blossom Festival commemorates the 1912 gift of 3,000 cherry trees from Mayor Yukio Ozaki of Tokyo to the city of Washington, DC. In a simple ceremony on March 27, 1912, First Lady Helen Herron Taft & Viscountess Chinda, wife of the Japanese ambassador, planted the first 2 trees from Japan on the north bank of the Tidal Basin. In 1915, the United States Government reciprocated with a gift of flowering dogwood trees to the people of Japan.

Cherry Blossoms in Washington DC

Only a little over 100 years before the first Cherry Blossoms arrived in Washington DC from Japan, on May 3, 1802, Washington DC was incorporated as a city. In 1789, the US Congress - Senate & House of Representatives - assembled for the 1st time in New York. Congress moved to Philadelphia in 1790, and then to Washington, DC, in 1800. In 1807, the Congress moved into the U.S. Capitol in Washington, DC, 4 years before the Capitol’s House wing was fully completed. In 1814, the nation was severely tested, when invading British forces burned the Capitol. It would be another 5 years before the chambers were fully restored. In 1857, the House met for the first time in its present-day chambers. This posting will look at the development & the symbolism of the building & the gardens around the United States Capitol.

Classical Temple Dedicated to Liberty, Justice, and Peace. James Trenchard. Temple of Liberty. The Columbian Magazine, (Philadelphia) 1788, Library of Congress.  This engraving of a classical temple building depicts statues on the roof, including Libertas (liberty), Justicia or Themis (justice), & Ceres (peace). Libertas is at the peak with the others on the corners. In the background a rising sun radiating beams of light with one shining upon Libertas holding her staff & freedom cap. Emerging from the pure, bright sunlight in the distance is the new nation--lady Columbia with an eagle headdress. Standing below is Concordia holding a horn of plenty; Columbia's winged son holding a scroll with CONSTITUTION written on it; and Clio, the muse of history, beginning to write the history of the new nation. Scrolling across the front of the classical temple are the words: SACRED TO LIBERTY, JUSTICE AND PEACE. Below this engraving was written,

Behold a Fabric now to Freedom rear'd,
Approved by friends, and ev'n Foes rever'd,
Where Justice, too, and Peace, by us ador'd,
Shall heal each Wrong, and keep ensheath'd the Sword
Approach then, Concord, fair Columbia's Son,
And faithful Clio, write that "We Are One."

In 1788, Philadelphia's Columbian Magazine published an engraving by James Trenchard called the Temple of Liberty. Trenchard, born in 1746, at Penns Neck in Salem County, New Jersey, was an engraver & seal cutter in Philadelphia, and the artist for many of the plates for the Columbian Magazine, whose circulation was the largest of any 18th century magazine published in America.

Dr. William Thornton [Sketch of Section of Monument and Conference Room], c. 1797 Prints and Photographs Division Library of Congress. Thornton's drawings and concept won the contest to design the capitol.

Built on what came to be called Capitol Hill, its grounds changed greatly over the first half of the 19th century. I thought you might enjoy seeing the various depictions of the changing landscape.
Dr. William Thornton [East Elevation for North Wing], 1795-1797 Prints and Photographs Division Library of Congress.

Fierce competition over the site of the capital city had raged for years, reaching its height during the First Federal Congress, in New York between 1789 - 1790.
Dr. William Thornton [Plan of Ground Story of the Capitol,] c. 1795-1797 Prints and Photographs Division Library of Congress.

The always clever Alexander Hamilton helped broker a compromise in which the federal government would assume the war debt incurred during the Revolution, in exchange for support from northern states for locating the capital further south than New York or Philadelphia.
Dr. William Thornton's winning plan for the Capitol of the United States of America.

The compromise between the advocates for the North and those favoring a Southern location ended the feuding by agreeing on a nearly neutral location on the Potomac River, equidistant between North & South, and easily defended. (It had been George Washington's choice all along, and it was Hamilton's goal to please the General.)
c 1800 A View of the Capitol of Washington Watercolor by William Birch.

The agreement called for a 100-square mile federal district to be located somewhere along the Potomac River at a site to be chosen by fellow river-property owner, George Washington. Washington picked the junction of the Potomac & Anacostia Rivers. He then chose Pierre Charles L'Enfant, a military artist who had served under him at Valley Forge, to design the new federal city.
An 1801 View of George Town and the Federal City, or the City of Washington before its development into the federal city. Color aquatint by T. Cartwright of London after George Beck of Philadelphia. Published by Atkins & Nightingale of London and Philadelphia.

The Capitol of the United States crowns what was then Jenkins Hill in Washington, D.C., and houses the legislative branch of government, the House of Representatives & the Senate.
1806 Benjamin Latrobe View of the Capitol of the United States.

Pierre Charles L'Enfant chose Jenkins Hill as the site for the United States Capitol building, which rose 88 feet above the Potomac River, and sat 1 mile from the White House. L'Enfant declared, "It stands as a pedestal waiting for a monument."
A view of the still undeveloped East Branch of Potomac River at Washington. Watercolor by August Kollner (1813-1906) in 1839.

The land on which the Capitol stands was 1st occupied by the Manahoacs & the Monacans, who were subtribes of the Algonquin Indians. Early settlers reported that these tribes occasionally held councils not far from the foot of the hill. This land eventually became a part of Cerne Abbey Manor. At the time of its acquisition by the federal government "Jenkins Hill" was owned by the well-to-do Marylander Daniel Carroll of Duddington, and it stood on a tract of land originally known by the more classically-inspired name of "New Troy."
1814 George Munger (1781-1825). United States Capitol after the British burned the capitol.

Thomas Jefferson came up with the name Capitol Hill, consciously invoking the famous temple of Jupiter Optimus Maximus on the Capitoline Hill in ancient Rome. The building would be America's Temple of Liberty.
Depiction of the United States Capitol before the fire of 1814.

George Washinton & his allies wanted buildings that would embody the nation's hoped-for future. "In our Idea the Capitol ought in point of prosperity to be on a grand Scale, and that a Republic especially ought not to be sparing of expenses on an Edifice for such purposes."
1815 1st known depiction of the Capitol in Relation to Its Grounds by Benjamin Henry Latrobe [Plan of the Mall and the Capitol Grounds], Geography and Map Division Library of Congress.

The 1792 competition for its design was won by Dr. William Thornton (1759–1828), a physcian & an amateur architect, with a proposal for a Palladian-inspired building featuring a central domed rotunda flanked by the Senate & House wings.
Watercolor Presented to Marquis de Lafayette to Commemorate His 1824 Visit to Capitol. Charles Burton's West Front of the Capitol of the United States. Metropolitan Museum of Art.Spring Break to South Carolina

President George Washington, dressed in masonic attire, laid the cornerstone in 1793, in a masonic ceremony. At this time the site of the Capitol was a relative wilderness partly overgrown with scrub oak. Oliver Wolcott, a signer of the Declaration of Independence, described the soil as "an exceedingly stiff clay, becoming dust in dry and mortar in rainy weather." A muddy creek with swampy borders flowed at the base of the hill, and an alder swamp bordered by tall woods occupied the place where the United States Botanic Garden now stands. The city's inhabitants, like L'Enfant & Washington, expected that the capital would grow to the east, leaving the Capitol & the White House essentially on its outskirts. For some years the land around the Capitol was regarded as a common, crossed by roads in several directions & intended to be left as an open area.
1828 Contrast Between the Temple of Liberty and Nearby Log Cabins by John Rubens Smith. [West Front of the Capitol]. Prints and Photographs Division Library of Congress.

Construction proceeded slowly under a succession of architects, including Stephen Hallet (1793), George Hadfield (1795-98) and James Hoban (1798-1802), architect of the White House, who completed the Senate wing in 1800.
1830-40 Early Perspective Drawing of Completed Capitol Attributed to George Strickland [Perspective drawing of the Capitol from the Northeast,] In the Collection of the Architect of the Capitol.

Though the building was incomplete, the Capitol held its first session of United States Congress on November 17, 1800.
Das Capitol in Washington" Steel engraving by E. Grünenwald after an earlier drawing by H. Brown. Published in 1851.

Benjamin Latrobe took over in 1803; by 1811 he had renovated the Senate wing and completed the House wing.
1839 Capitol Overlooks Pastoral Landscape by Russell Smith. Capitol from Mr. Elliot's Garden. In the Collection of the Architect of the Capitol.

Benjamin Latrobe first considered the Capitol building in relation to its grounds and made a watercolor of the possible landscape design in 1815.
1839 Charles Fenderich's Elevation of the Eastern Front of the Capitol of the United States.

The Senate wing was completed in 1800, while the House wing was completed in 1811. However, the House of Representatives moved into the House wing in 1807.
August Kollner (1813-1906). West Front of the United States Capitol. New York: Goupil, Vibert, & Co., 1839. Library of Congress.

The Capitol was burned by British troops in 1814; and in the following year, Latrobe began its reconstruction and redesign.
1840 W.H. Bartlett's Ascent to the Capitol in Nathaniel P. Willis, American Scenery, vol. 1. London Virtue.

Boston architect Charles Bullfinch succeeded him in 1818; and completed the building, with only slight modifications of Latrobe's master plan, in 1830. Under Bullfinch in 1825, a plan was devised for imposing order on the Capitol grounds, & it was carried out for almost 15 years. The plan divided the area into flat, rectangular grassy areas bordered by trees, flower beds, & gravel walks. The growth of the trees, however, soon deprived the other plantings of nourishment, & the design became increasingly difficult to maintain in light of sporadic & small appropriations.

John Foy, who had charge of the grounds during most of this period, was "superseded for political reasons," & the area was then maintained with little care or forethought. John Foy was dead by 1837, and James Maher took over as the public gardener.  Many rapidly growing but short-lived trees were introduced and soon depleted the soil; a lack of proper pruning and thinning left the majority of the area's vegetation ill-grown, feeble, or dead.
1840 W.H. Bartlett's View of the Capitol at Washington in Nathaniel P. Willis, American Scenery, vol. 1. London Virtue.

By 1837, the Washington Guide reported, The Capitol Square has been enlarged to the west, by taking in that part of the Mall extending from the circular road to First street, west; making about eight acres additional. This space has been properly graded and planted with trees and shrubs by Mr. James Maher, the public gardener:—the other part of the square was planted by the late John Foy, a man of excellent talents and taste. A good substantial stone wall, surmounted by an iron-railing, surrounds the whole square. When the walks are completed, and the water-fountains arranged, this square will afford the most beautiful and healthful walks: a subject well deserving public attention.
1839 South Gateway of the Capitol at Washington, D.C. showing stone walls & iron rails. Gray and sepia wash drawing by August Kollner (1813-1906).
Daguerreotype by John C. Plumbe, Jr., taken about 1846, is the earliest known photographic image of the Capitol. Library of Congress.

In 1874, Congress passed an act making Frederick Law Olmsted (1822-1903) the first landscape architect of the United States Capitol. Olmsted accepted the job, wishing to "train the tastes of the nation." The mid-19th-century enlargement of the US Capitol, in which the House & Senate wings & the new dome were added, required that the Capitol grounds be expanded.

John Singer Sargent (American artist, 1856-1925) Frederick Law Olmsted 1895

Olmsted's original concept for the design for the governmental buildings clustered in Washington, DC envisioned a ground plan that united the White House, Capitol &, other government agencies to symbolize the union of the nation, which was still trying to overcome the divisions of the Civil War. In his previous landscape design plans, Olmsted had made architecture less important than its green surroundings. However, for the seat of the legislative branch of the United States of America, Olmsted wanted to make the Capitol building the crowning centerpiece. Olmsted was determined that the grounds should complement the building.

Reflecting on his work, Olmsted recalled: "The most interesting general fact of my life seems to me to be that it was not as a gardener, a florist, a botanist, or one in any way specially interested in plants & flowers, or specially susceptible to their beauty, that I was drawn to my work. The root of all my work has been an early respect for & enjoyment of scenery, & extraordinary opportunities for cultivating susceptibility to its power. I mean not so much grand or sensational scenery as scenery of a more domestic order -- scenery which is to be looked upon contemplatively & is producing of musing moods."

His 15-year-long project on the grounds of the United States Capitol did envision an open setting immediately surrounding the Capitol & a more naturalistic scenery with shrubbery & trees further from the Capitol, nearer to its entrances.  Because of the many streets & entrances merging at the capitol, the creation of a workable circulation system dominated the design process. The east side of the Capitol needed more open spaces for large masses of people gathered for inaugurations & other large events normally held at the East Front. Two large ovals with scattered trees were designed for the east side to accommodate the grounds needed during such events.

Olmsted's 1874 Plan for the US Capitol

Before he could begin to execute his landscape design, the practical Olmsted had to ensure the soil's nutrients. He began by spending $60,000 to improve the soil; level the ground; & add new sewer, gas & water systems.  Work on the grounds began in 1874. Olmsted constructed marble terraces on the north, west, & south sides of the building, thereby "causing it to gain greatly in the supreme qualities of stability, endurance, & repose."

By 1876, gas & water service was completed for the entire grounds, & electrical lamp-lighting was installed. Utilitarian areas such as stables & workshops were removed from the northwest & southwest corners. A streetcar system, quickly replacing the horses from those displaced stables, north & south of the west grounds was relocated farther from the Capitol. The granite & bronze lamp piers & ornamental bronze lamps for the east plaza area were completed  & installed.  Work on the plantings accelerated in 1877.  By this time, according to Olmsted's report, "altogether 7,837 plants & trees [had] been set out." However, not all had survived: hundreds were stolen or destroyed by vandals, &, as Olmsted explained, "a large number of cattle [had] been caught trespassing." Washington DC had not yet lost all of its rural charm.

By 1879, the roads were paved & most of the work on the east side of the grounds was completed. The stone walls on the west side of the grounds were almost finished.  In 1885, an aging Olmsted retired from superintendency of the huge terrace project; but he continued to direct the work on landscaping the grounds until 1889. In 1895, senility forced Olmsted to retire from his lifetime of work.
Arieal view of the United States Capitol. The Capitol Grounds cover approximately 274 acres.

Information on Olmstead from Architect of the Capitol & from Christine Owen US Capitol Historical Society.