Tuesday, May 5, 2020
Interior of 1873 New York Seed & Plant Store
Monday, May 4, 2020
History Blooms at Monticello - Dwarf Crested Iris
This charming woodland iris is native to the eastern North American deciduous forest where it often grows on rocky slopes. Peter Collinson, an English patron and regular correspondent of John Custis from Williamsburg and the Bartrams of Philadelphia, grew this plant from roots sent to him during the mid 18th century.
In 1766 Jefferson began his Garden Book with observations of wildflowers along the Rivanna River, including the “Dwarf flag” flowering May 4th “in our woods.” Dwarf crested iris spreads slowly creating large mats of handsome light green foliage that deer do not find attractive. A white form, Iris cristata ‘Alba’, also occurs in the wild.
For more information & the possible availability for purchase
Women & Gardens - 19C Gardening Manuals from Seed & Plant Dealers entice Women to Garden
When Gardens Replaced Children
Justor Daily By: Livia Gershon May 4, 2018
"Historian Robin Veder explains that the way we associate female nurturing with gardens goes back to the way ideas about gender & work changed in the mid-19C.
"Think about gardening, or tending houseplants, & you most likely think of a woman—perhaps a woman who has plenty of leisure time & loves taking care of living things. Historian Robin Veder explains that the way we associate female nurturing with raising flowers goes back the way ideas about gender & work changed in the mid-19C...
"Gardening manuals of the 19C described flowers taking “the place of children in bereaved homes” or in families where adult children had moved out. Wealthy households depended on skilled horticultural workers—either hired or enslaved—to care for their flowering plants. But middle-class homeowners were limited to their own amateur efforts. So professional horticulturists, who stood to benefit from new customers at their nurseries & greenhouses, began writing manuals, magazines, & columns.
"Before 1840 or so, Veder writes, most authors of gardening manuals assumed their readers were male. But from the 1850s through 1870s, there was a flurry of books about flower gardening & indoor floral decorations. Women’s magazines including Ladies Home Journal actually grew out of horticultural & agricultural publications’ efforts to reach a female audience.
"Gardening manuals written in this period described flowers taking “the place of children in bereaved homes” or in families where adult children had moved out.
"Prolific California gardener Mrs. Annie C. Brown explained in Ladies Home Journal in 1887 that her only daughter was now grown “so all my spare time is given to my flowers. They are to me as children…”
"Harriet Beecher Stowe wrote that a successful gardener treats her plants as children: “She loves them; she lives in them; she has in herself a plant-life & a plant-sympathy. She feels for them as if she herself were a plant...”
"In books & articles from this era, to buy a plant was to remove it from the cold world of market forces & transform it into an object of love...Veder writes that 19C gardening manuals drew on a long tradition of sentimental pastoralism—a tradition that “aestheticizes economically significant work by framing it as leisure.” Gardening, like parenting, clearly involves mental & physical labor, & both provide something of value to the household. But books & articles portrayed both activities as a natural extension of women’s being, rather than “work.”
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.
Sunday, May 3, 2020
South Carolina - Plants for the Table - Slaves & Rice in Georgetown
"The intricate steps involved in planting, cultivating, harvesting, and preparing rice required an immense labor force. Planters stated that African slaves were particularly suited to provide that labor force for two reasons: 1) rice was grown in some areas of Africa and there was evidence that some slaves were familiar with the methods of cultivation practiced there, and 2) it was thought that the slaves, by virtue of their racial characteristics, were better able than white laborers to withstand the extreme heat and humidity of the tidal swamps and therefore would be more productive workers. Rice cultivation resulted in a dramatic increase in the numbers of slaves owned by South Carolinians before the American Revolution.
"In 1680, four-fifths of South Carolina's population was white. However, black slaves outnumbered white residents two to one in 1720, and by 1740, slaves constituted nearly 90% of the population. Much of the growing slave population came from the West Coast of Africa, a region that had gained notoriety by exporting its large rice surpluses.
"While there is no consensus on how rice first reached the American coast, there is much debate over the contribution of African-born slaves to its successful cultivation. New research demonstrates that the European planters lacked prior knowledge of rice farming, while uncovering the long history of skilled rice cultivation in West Africa. Furthermore, Islamic, Portuguese, and Dutch traders all encountered and documented extensive rice cultivation in Africa before South Carolina was even settled.
"At first rice was treated like other crops, it was planted in fields and watered by rains. By the mid-18th century, planters used inland swamps to grow rice by accumulating water in a reservoir, then releasing the stored water as needed during the growing season for weeding and watering. Similarly, prior records detail Africans controlling springs and run off with earthen embankments for the same purposes of weeding and watering.
"Soon after this method emerged, a second evolution occurred, this time to tidewater production, a technique that had already been perfected by West African farmers. Instead of depending upon a reservoir of water, this technique required skilled manipulation of tidal flows and saline-freshwater interactions to attain high levels of productivity in the floodplains of rivers and streams. Changing from inland swamp cultivation to tidal production created higher expectations from plantation owners. Slaves became responsible for five acres of rice, three more than had been possible previously. Because of this new evidence coming to light, some historians contend that African-born slaves provided critical expertise in the cultivation of rice in South Carolina. The detailed and extensive rice cultivating systems increased demand for slave imports in South Carolina, doubling the slave population between 1750 and 1770. These slaves faced long days of backbreaking work and difficult tasks.
"A slave's daily work on an antebellum rice plantation was divided into tasks. Each field hand was given a task--usually nine or ten hours' hard work--or a fraction of a task to complete each day according to his or her ability. The tasks were assigned by the driver, a slave appointed to supervise the daily work of the field hands. The driver held the most important position in the slave hierarchy on the rice plantation. His job was second only to the overseer in terms of responsibility.
"The driver's job was particularly important because each step of the planting, growing, and harvesting process was crucial to the success or failure of the year's crop. In the spring, the land was harrowed and plowed in preparation for planting. Around the first of April rice seed was sown by hand using a small hoe. The first flooding of the field, the sprout flow, barely covered the seed and lasted only until the grain sprouted. The water was then drained to keep the delicate sprout from floating away, and the rice was allowed to grow for approximately three weeks. Around the first of May any grass growing among the sprouts was weeded by hoe and the field was flooded by the point flow to cover just the tops of the plants. After a few days the water was gradually drained until it half covered the plants. It remained at this level--the long flow--until the rice was strong enough to stand. More weeding followed and then the water was slowly drained completely off the field. The ground around the plants was hoed to encourage the growth and extension of the roots. After about three weeks, the field was hoed and weeded again, at which time--around mid-June or the first of July--the lay-by flow was added and gradually increased until the plants were completely submerged. This flow was kept on the field for about two months with fresh water periodically introduced and stagnant water run off by the tidal flow through small floodgates called trunks.
"Rice planted in the first week of April was usually ready for harvesting by the first week of September. After the lay-by flow was withdrawn, just before the grain was fully ripe, the rice was cut with large sickles known as rice hooks and laid on the ground on the stubble. After it had dried overnight, the cut rice was tied into sheaves and taken by flatboat to the threshing yard. In the colonial period, threshing was most often done by beating the stalks with flails. This process was simple but time consuming. If the rice was to be sold rough, it was then shipped to the agent; otherwise, it was husked and cleaned--again, usually by hand. By the mid-19th century most of the larger plantations operated pounding and/or threshing mills which were driven by steam engines. After the rice had been prepared, it was packed in barrels, or tierces, and shipped to the market at Georgetown or Charleston. In 1850 a rice plantation in the Georgetown County area produced an average yield of 300,000 pounds of rice. The yield had increased to 500,000 pounds by 1860."
See The U.S. National Park Service
See The U.S. National Park Service
Saturday, May 2, 2020
Women's Work 1873 - US Women Packaging Seeds & Herbs for Sale
The Employments of Women: A Cyclopaedia of Woman's Work by Virginia Panny Published Walker, Wise & Company, 1863
"Seed Envelopers and Herb Packers.
"In a seed store in Philadelphia, we found, they employ women in January and February, at $2.50 a week, to put seeds up in paper bags, seal them, and paste labels on. They go at eight in the morning, and remain until dark.
"At a large drug store in Philadelphia, we were told they employ nine women. They have seven distinct branches for the women, and separate apartments for each branch, consisting of weighing and putting up powders, sorting herbs and roots, putting up liquids, &c., &c. The women earn from $3 to $5 a week, and spend nine hours, from eight to six, having an hour at noon. In busy seasons they remain till eight or nine, and receive additional wages. There is nothing unhealthy in the business. They are paid $3 a week from the time they are taken to learn, and deduction made for absence.
"A seller of botanic medicines in Boston writes me: “He employs women in putting medicines in small packages for the retail trade, bottling the same, and labeling. He pays $5 a week to his women, and $3 a week while learning, the time for which is six months. Common sense, neatness, and integrity are the qualifications needed. The girls work from nine to ten hours. He will not employ any but American women. He pays men $8 or $9, because they can take them off, and put them upon work that girls cannot do. Women would be paid better if they were stronger, and did not need so much waiting upon in the way of lifting and arranging their work. Rainy days they want to stay at home, or, if they come, it takes half a day for them to dry their clothes. Men they can depend on in all weather. Women might keep their books, if their crinoline was not too extensive: that alone would bar them from the counting room. Women are inferior only in physical disabilities. Girls are good for nothing until after sixteen years of age; and nine in ten will get married as soon as they are fairly initiated in workhence the time spent by women in acquiring a business education is to a certain extent lost—lost to their employers, but of assistance to them in the education of their children.”
"Mr. P., botanic druggist says: “There are but three establishments in New York, for this business, and twelve women would be quite enough for them. They put up herbs in packages. One day's practice is enough for a smart person. The women are paid from $3 to $5 a week.”
"At the United States Botanic Depot they employ one girl, and pay her $4 a week. She only works in daylight. Mr. J. L. employs two girls to put up botanic medicines. He has men to cork the bottles. They work ten months in the year. Nothing is done in December and January. They pay $4 a week, of ten hours a day.
"In Louisville, St. Louis, and Cincinnati, few women are employed in this way. Some seedsmen and florists near Boston employ four ladies in enveloping seed. One of the ladies writes: “ We presume more ladies are employed in Europe to put up seed than in this."
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.
Friday, May 1, 2020
Women's Work 1863 - US Women as Landscape Gardeners
"Mrs. R. often goes & looks at gardens, directs how to lay them out, & what to buy for them. She then orders the plants of others, & sells on commission, having them arranged according to her own taste, influenced by that of the purchaser. Her purchases are made of a German, living some distance from town, who can raise them cheaper than she could in the city. Her compensation, of course, varies greatly.
"A landscape gardener writes : “ What a lady could do as landscape gardener at the West, I do not know. I am rather inclined to doubt her success at the East. It would require too much time & space to enter here into the details of what are required to constitute a landscape gardener: First, one must have a decided love for it, & a willingness to sacrifice much to the pleasure of the occupation. Nor can I say a great deal in favor of the profits. I have never been able to make a living by the profession, although I have often thought if I had gone to New York, or farther West, the case might have been different. In pages 381 & 382 of Country Life,' & in many other parts of the book, you will see what I consider essential to the making up & preparation of a landscape gardener, & better expressed than I can condense into a letter.”
"Mr. C., of Massachusetts, writes : “I have never known a lady to undertake the profession of landscape gardening; & much of the labor which I find it necessary to perform, would be impossible for a lady. Still, there is much in which female taste would find abundant field for exertion, if the labor could be so divided as to make it profitable. My first work on any estate is to make an accurate topographical survey of the ground, &draw a plan of it in its natural state, & then proceed to make my designs for its arrangement; & when that is done, if required, I undertake the superintendence of the work at the ground.
"A lady would have to employ a surveyor, in the first place, & would labor under many disadvantages in directing the operations upon grounds; &, to judge from my own experience, the business could not be made profitable under such circumstances. Loudon's 'Encyclopædia of Gardening' will give the best directions I know of for the necessary operations of designing & executing plans, & Downing's work, with Sargent's appendix, comprises enough suggestions, on matters of taste, for the use of any person who is possessed of innate natural taste, without which I would advise no one to attempt to be a landscape gardener.”
The Employments of Women: A Cyclopaedia of Woman's Work by Virginia Panny Published 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.
Thursday, April 30, 2020
18C Jane Colden (1724-1766) 1st female American Botanist
Colden was born in New York City, the 5th child of Cadwallader Colden (1688-1776), who was a physician who trained at the University of Edinburgh and became involved in the politics & management of New York after arriving in the city from Scotland in 1718, & his wife Alice Christy Colden, the daughter of a clergyman, brought up in Scotland in an intellectual atmosphere. Daughter Jane Colden was educated at home; & her father provided her with botanical training following the new classification system developed by Carl Linnaeus. His scientific curiosity included a personal correspondence between 1749-1751 with Carolus Linnaeus (1707-1778).
Her father thought women should study botany because of "their natural curiosity & the pleasure they take in the beauty & variety of dress seems to fit them for it." It was true that floral illustrations filled British American colonial homes on English textiles and soft paste & porcelain tableware ordered by the gentry through their factors or sent in the holds of English ships to be sold in local shops.
Moreover, he viewed such study as an ideal substitute for idleness among his female children, when he moved his family to the country in 1729. He believed gardening & botany "an Amusement which may be made agreable for the Ladies who are often at a loss to fill their time." He went so far as to recommend that perhaps from Jane's example "young ladies in a like situation may find an agreable way to fill up some part Of their time which otherwise might be heavy on their hand May amuse & please themselves & at the same time be usefull to others."
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The family's move to a 3,000-acre estate in Orange County stimulated the botanical interests of both Cadwallader & Jane Colden. Cadwalleder Colden had been the first to apply the system of botanical classification developed by the Swedish botanist Carl Linnaeus (Linnaean Taxonomy) to an American plant collection & he translated the text of Linnaeus’ books into English.
A letter of 1755 from Colden to Dutch botanist Jan Gronovius (1666-1762) her father explained. "I have a daughter who has an inclination to reading and a curiosity for natural philosophy or natural History and a sufficient capacity for attaining a competent knowledge. I took the pains to explain to her Linnaeus' system and to put it in English for her to use by freeing it from the Technical Terms which was easily done by using two or three words in place of one. She is now grown very fond of the study and has made such progress in it as I believe would please you if you saw her performance. Tho' perhaps she could not have been persuaded to learn the terms at first she now understands to some degree Linnaeus' characters notwithstanding that she does not understand Latin."
Jane Colden far surpassed her father's idleness theory. She was the 1st scientist to describe the gardenia. She read the works of Carolus Linnaeus (1707-1778) in translation, and she mastered the Linnaean system of plant classification perfectly. She cataloged, described, & sketched at least 400 plants. She actively collected seeds & specimens of New World flora & exchanged them with others on both sides of the Atlantic.
Due to the lack of schools & gardens around the area, her father wrote to Peter Collinson, where he inquired about getting sent "the best cuts or pictures of [plants] for which purpose I would buy for her Tourneforts Institutes & Morison’s Historia plantarum, or if you know any better books for this purpose as you are a better judge than I am I will be obliged to you in making the choice" in order for Jane to continue her studies of botanical sciences.
In addition to obtaining books & illustration samples for his daughter, Cadwallader also surrounded her with like-minded scientists, including Peter Kalm & William Bartram. In 1754, a notable gathering with South Carolina scientist Dr. Alexander Garden (1730-1791) & William Bartram sparked Jane's interests even more & allowed the fruition of the collaboration & friendship between Jane & Garden to flourish. Garden, an active collector of his local flora, later corresponded with Jane, exchanged seeds & plants with her, & instructed her in the preservation of butterflies. Garden wrote in a letter to British naturalist John Ellis (1711-1778) in 1755, that Jane Colden “is greatly master of the Linnaean method, and cultivates it with assiduity.”
Of his daughter, Cadwallader wrote in a 1755 letter to Dr. John Frederic Gronovius, a colleague of Linneaus, that she possessed "a natural inclination to reading & a natural curiosity for natural philosophy & natural history." He wrote that Jane was already writing descriptions of plants using Linnaeus' classification & taking impressions of leaves using a press. In this letter, Cadwallader sought to earn her a position with Dr. Gronovius sending seeds or samples.
On January 20, 1756, Peter Collinson (1694-1768) wrote to John Bartram that "Our friend Colden's daughter has, in a scientific manner, sent over several sheets of plants, very curiously anatomized after this [Linnaeus's] method. I believe she is the first lady that has attempted anything of this nature."
Colden participated in the Natural History Circle where she exchanged seeds & plants with other plant collectors in the American colonies & in Europe. These exchanges within the Natural History Circle encouraged Jane to become a botanist.
Through her father she met & corresponded with many leading naturalists of the time, including Carolus Linnaeus (1707-1778). Carolus Linnaeus knew of Jane's work. He corresponded directly with her father; and in a 1758, letter to British naturalist John Ellis (1711-1778) tells Linnaeus that he will let Jane know "what civil things you say of her." One of her descriptions of a new plant, which she herself called Fibraurea, was forwarded to Linnaeus with the suggestion that he should call it Coldenella, but Linnaeus declined calling it Helleborus (now Coptis groenlandica). Collinson reported to Carolus Linnaeus, "Your system, I can tell you obtains much in America. Mr. Clayton and Dr. Colden at Albany of Hudson's River in New York are complete Professors....Even Dr. Colden's daughter was an enthusiast." He later wrote to Linnaeus, that Jane Colden “is perhaps the first lady that has so perfectly studied your system. She deserves to be celebrated.”
Colden's manuscript, in which she had ink drawings of leaves & descriptions of the plants, was never named. Colden's original manuscript describing the flora of New York has been held in the British Museum since the mid-1800s. Her manuscript drawing consisted only of leaves & these drawings were only ink outlines colored in with neutral tint. Her descriptions were "excellent-full , careful, & evidently taken from living specimens." Colden's descriptions include morphological details of flower, fruit, & plant structure, as well as ways on how to use certain plants for medicinal or culinary purposes. Some of the descriptions include the month of flowering & the habitat where they are found. Latin & common names for the plants are given.
In her section "Observat" (now known as observations) she pointing out to Linnaeus that "there are some plants of Clematis that bear only male flowers, this I have observed with such care that there can be no doubt about it." This shows the long hours she spent doing observations, which were consistent, accurate & replicable.
Colden married Scottish widower Dr. William Farquhar on March 12, 1759. She died in childbirth only 7 years later at the age of 41, along with the newborn. There is no evidence that she continued her botanical work after her marriage.
Her work on plant classification was noted in a Scottish scientific journal in 1770, 4 years after her death. Americans did not become aware of Colden's manuscript until 75 years later, when Almira Lincoln stated that another female botanist before her was the first American lady to illustrate the science of botany. In spite of all of Colden's accomplishments, she was never formally recognized during her lifetime by having a plant named after her. The genus Coldenia is named after her father.
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