Why Garden in the 18C? - For a Pure Nation...

Philadelphia seed dealer, & writer Bernard M'Mahon (1775-1816), like his friend Thomas Jefferson, well understood that nature in general & particularly gardening--the ordering of nature--were intertwined with mortality & nationhood in the minds of America's political leaders, as they structured the fledgling nation’s emerging institutions.

Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790) by Robert Feke d 1769 Harvard University

Even before the Revolutionary War, Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790) wrote on April 4, 1769, "Finally, there seem to be but three Ways for a Nation to acquire Wealth. The first is by War as the Romans did in plundering their conquered Neighbours. This is Robbery. The second by Commerce which is generally Cheating. The third by Agriculture the only honest Way; wherein Man receives a real Increase of the Seed thrown into the Ground, in a kind of continual Miracle wrought by the Hand of God in his favour, as a Reward for his innocent Life, and virtuous Industry."

John Adams

John Adams (1735-1826) wrote to his wife Abigail Adams on May 12, 1780. "I must study politics and war that my sons may have liberty to study mathematics and philosophy. My sons ought to study mathematics and philosophy, geography, natural history, naval architecture, navigation, commerce, and agriculture, in order to give their children a right to study painting, poetry, music architecture, statuary, tapestry, and porcelain."

John Trumbull (American painter, 1756-1843) Thomas Jefferson 1788

In 1784, Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) wrote to John Jay, 1785 Aug. 23. "Cultivators of the earth are the most valuable citizens. They are the most vigorous, the most independant, the most virtuous, and they are tied to their country and wedded to it's liberty and interests by the most lasting bands."

George Washington by Charles Willson Peale (Mount Vernon Ladies’ Association)

George Washington (1732-1799) wrote a letter to the Marquis de Chastellux, on April, 25, 1788. "For the sake of humanity it is devoutly to be wished that the manly employment of agriculture and the humanizing benefits of commerce would supersede the waste of war and the rage of conquest; and the swords might be turned into ploughshares, the spears into pruning-hooks, and as the Scripture expresses it, 'the nations learn war no more'."

 François Jean de Chastellux in 1782 by Charles Willson Peale (1741–1827)

It did not take 1796 immigrant nurseryman Bernard M'Mahon long to see the importance of farming & gardening to the success of the new nation. Before his gardening book was published in 1806, M’Mahon understood the proud new country well enough to appeal to national hubris in his effort to sell his readers on the concept of pleasure gardening & thereby increase the profits of his gardening ventures in Philadelphia & beyond.

 M'Mahon, Bernard. The American Gardener's Calendar. 1806.

In his book's introduction, M’Mahon lamented that America had “not yet made that rapid progress in Gardening…which might naturally be expected from an intelligent, happy & independent people, possessed so universally of landed property, unoppressed by taxation or tithes, & blest with consequent comfort & affluence.” M’Mahon concluded that one reason for this neglect was the lack of a proper reference book on American gardening, a situation, which he volunteered to rectify.

By 1817, Jefferson was even more convinced that keeping the connection between the citizens and the land was imperative for the success of the new republic. He received a booklet from a friend & wrote in his thank you response, "The pamphlet you were so kind as to send me manifests a zeal, which cannot be too much praised, for the interests of agriculture, the employment of our first parents in Eden, the happiest we can follow, and the most important to our country."

Plants in Early American Gardens - Bald Cypress

Bare Root Bald Cypress (Taxodium distichum)

Although the natural range of Bald Cypress extends from Delaware to Florida and west to southern Illinois and Louisiana, it is hardy as far north as Canada. It was introduced into England by John Tradescant the Younger who, with his father John the Elder, established a garden of exotic plants along the River Thames near London during the 1640s. The 18th-century naturalist and illustrator Mark Catesby described it as the loftiest North American tree next to the Tulip Poplar. The name Bald Cypress refers to its deciduous nature. Jefferson’s listing of “Cypress Cupressus disticha” in his book, Notes on the State of Virginia, may actually refer to Bald Cypress.

For more information & the possible availability
Contact The Tho Jefferson Center for Historic Plants or The Shop at Monticello 

Bare Root Bald Cypress (Taxodium distichum)

Gardens Display Economic & Cultural Ambitions - Create a Tranquil Home

Seedsman Grant Thorburn (1773-1863) gave space in his 1832 seed catalog to an idea often touted in garden literature of the early 1800’s - the encouragement of gardening as a desirable & suitable occupation for ladies. It was considered proper, if a woman could afford it, to stay at home. To occupy her time with botany was thought to be an edifying activity that would improve the health, well-being, & perhaps even the temperance of her family members by providing a beautiful & cultivated home that would be preferable to a tavern. 

Thorburn provided instructions for making herbaria, with the remark that this would be a better use of ladies’ time than compiling sentimental scrapbooks. 

All the same, the last 4 pages of the Thorburn 1832 catalog translate the language of flowers, with which ladies could convey secret messages in their bouquets. Pressing flowers, flower drawing & botany infused with sentiment were popular hobbies of 19C middle-class ladies, & the catalog clearly addressed this market.

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.

Plants in Early American Gardens - Cornelian Cherry

Cornelian Cherry (Cornus mas)

On March 31, 1774, Jefferson recorded in his garden diary planting four "Ciriege Corniole" or Cornelian Cherries, and 16 other varieties of fruit trees and vegetables. The Cornelian Cherry is a native to southern Europe and western Asia, and has been cultivated since ancient times for the fruit it produces. Excellent for preserves and syrup, the fruit of this plant can be harvested in early summer.

For more information & the possible availability
Contact The Tho Jefferson Center for Historic Plants or The Shop at Monticello 

Gardens Display Economic & Cultural Ambitions - For Amusement & Diversion...

Throughout the 18C, gentle women and men sometimes referred to flowers, botany, and their gardens as their amusements, their diversions.

Outdoors with a book. 1798 William Clarke. Mrs William Frazer. Delaware. 

In South Carolina, Eliza Pinckney (1722-1793), who was responsible for profitably changing the economy of South Carolina by introducing indigo agriculture, wrote in 1760,“I love a garden & a book; they are all my amusement.”

William Stephens (1671-1753), President of the Province of Georgia from 1741-51, kept a diary between the years of 1742-43. In March of 1741, he wrote, "Thursday...I busy'd my self good part of it at the 5 Acre lot in gardening, and propagating Variety of Seeds and Plants, which I always thought an Agreeable amusement when I could find proper Leisure."

A tree-lined drive marked the entrance to Beaulieu Plantation, the estate of William Stephens, who came to Savannah in 1737, to serve as Secretary of Trustee Georgia. Beaulieu was one of the leading river plantations near Savannah, where Stephens experimented with formal gardens as well as grape and cotton cultivation.

At another point Stephens wrote, "No Want of Diversion to employ my Time and Thoughts...: It was a Pleasure to see my Corn coming on, and other Things that were planted, very promising...and all hitherto in a hopeful Way: Besides the Amusement it gave me, in forming Schemes for many future Improvements in Gardening, and more curious Cultivation of Land, for the Production of Vines, Mulberries, Cotton, &c. of all which, I had provided a small Nursery, in the little five-Acre Lot near home."

Men were not above simply amusing themselves in their gardens either. George Washington reported that gardening had become his amusement.

1772 George Washington (1732-1799) by Charles Willson Peale detail

But who could actually garden for amusement & diversion in early America?

Even though Philadelphia nurseryman Bernard M’Mahon (1775-1816) promoted gardening to every segment of society in the new nation in his 1806 The American Gardener's Calendar, it was evident that before the Revolution true pleasure gardening as a “fine art” was only theoretically accessible to every man in the emerging republic. 
All the aspiring garden “artist” needed was
-an excess of land & leisure time;
-some knowledge of the rules of perspective, classical design, mythological symbolism, & horticulture;
-regularly available labor not otherwise needed to produce income; and
-the inclination to present himself at the pinnacle of the hierarchy of nature as he ordered it.

Gardening primarily for ornament, amusement, and diversion in the 18th century was obviously limited to the elite. Even after independence, the true pleasure gardener of the emerging republic was primarily the property owner, the male citizen of the United States of America. His wife might supervise the kitchen garden & perhaps, the greenhouse & decorative plants.

In the Maryland landscape paintings of Francis Guy (1760-1820), it was usually the male owner, often accompanied by a male visitor, who was depicted surveying his ornamental grounds. The pleasure-gardening property-owning male was usually also a slave owner or rented others’ slaves or paid free blacks or indentured whites to help shape & maintain his personal external environment. The possession of capital was an important ingredient in determining who pleasure gardened.

Yale graduate & father of 8 children Frederick Butler (1765-1843) wrote in Wethersfield, Connecticut, of the multiple motives for gardening, "The productions of a well cultivated Garden, are too evident to need any remarks by way of illustration. The health they afford to the family, not only in the luxuries Which they furnish for the table ; but in the exercise, amusement, and enjoyment they impart in their cultivation, exceed all description : in fact, the fruits and vegetables of a garden are the life of a family, upon every principle of enjoyment and economy."

John Trumbull (American painter, 1756-1843) Thomas Jefferson 1788 

Thomas Jefferson was constantly changing his house and his gardens at Monticello. Thomas Jefferson wrote to John Page, 4 May 1786, "I returned but three or four days ago from a two months trip to England ... the gardening in that country is the article in which it surpasses all the earth. I mean their pleasure gardening. this indeed went far beyond my ideas. Jefferson wrote on, 9 Apr. 1797 

"I have been in the enjoiment of our delicious spring. the soft genial temperature of the season, just above the want of fire, enlivened by the reanimation of birds, flowers, the fields, forests & gardens, has been truly delightful & continues to be so..."

But George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, & John Adams knew that gardening was more than just an amusement to occupy their idle hours. Each were aware of directions in garden design that had been spearheaded by the political leaders of centuries past & which were the basis for gardens in early America. The spiritual importance of gardening & the agrarian way of life was not lost on the gentlemen shaping American's future..

Plants in Early American Gardens - Culver's Root

Calabrese Broccoli (Brassica oleracea cv.)

Thomas Jefferson grew green, purple, and white types of broccoli on many occasions in his gardens at Monticello. Introduced to America in the 1880s by Italian immigrants, Calabrese Broccoli is a popular market variety with 5-8”, dark green heads. Smaller side shoots can be continually harvested after the main head is removed.

For more information & the possible availability
Contact The Tho Jefferson Center for Historic Plants or The Shop at Monticello 

19C Women & Gardens - American Richard Edward or Emil Miller (1875–1943)

Richard Edward Miller (American painter, 1875-1943) By the Riverbank 1910

Richard Emil Miller (1875-1943), American decorative Impressionist painter, studied at the St. Louis School of Fine Arts, & then sailed for Paris to study at Academie Julian (1898–1901).  Paris was the art capital of the 19C. Its museums, exhibition spaces, art academies, & the manner in which the arts were perceived as an integral part of everyday life drew painters, sculptors, & architects from around the world to the French capital. As the painter Cecilia Beaux expressed it, "Everything is there." Miller became part of the “Giverny Group,” the 2nd generation of mostly American artists to study & paint near the gardens created at his home by Claude Monet. Here are a few of Miller's women in gardens.

Richard Emil Miller (1875-1943) In the Garden

Richard Emil Miller (1875-1943) Reading in the Garden

Richard Emil Miller (1875-1943) Summer Reverie in the Garden

Richard Emil Miller (1875-1943) The Garden Seat

Richard Emil Miller (1875-1943) Woman Reading in the Garden

Richard Emil Miller (1875-1943) Woman with Parasol in the Garden

Richard Edward or Emil Miller (1875-1943) Reverie in the Garden