19C Women & Gardens - American Frederick Childe Hassam 1859-1935

Frederick Childe Hassam (1859-1935). Poppies on the Isles of Shoals, Maine.

Frederick Childe Hassam (1859-1935). Celia Thaxter in Her Garden.

Frederick Childe Hassam (1859-1935). Garden, Isles of Shoals, Maine.
Frederick Childe Hassam (1859-1935). Reading in the Garden at Villers le Be 1889

Frederick Childe Hassam (1859-1935). After Breakfast. 1887

Frederick Childe Hassam (1859-1935). Lilies. 1910

Frederick Childe Hassam (1859-1935). Mrs Hassam in the Garden. 1896

Frederick Childe Hassam (1859-1935). Reading. Date Unknown

Frederick Childe Hassam (1859-1935). In a French Garden. 1897

Frederick Childe Hassam (1859-1935). The Artist's Wife in a Garden Villiers le Bel. 1889

Frederick Childe Hassam (1859-1935). Gathering Flowers in a French Garden. ca 1888

Frederick Childe Hassam (1859-1935). Lady in the Park. 1897

Frederick Childe Hassam (1859-1935). Woman Cutting Roses in a Garden. 1888-89

Frederick Childe Hassam (1859-1935). In the Garden. ca 1888-89

Frederick Childe Hassam (1859-1935). Lady in Flower Garden. ca 1891

Frederick Childe Hassam (1859-1935) Celia's Thaxter's Garden 1892
Childe Hassam (1859-1935) Geraniums
Childe Hassam (1859-1935) In the Park, Paris

Childe Hassam (1859-1935) Listening to the Orchard Oriole
Childe Hassam (1859-1935) Spring the Artist's Sister

Childe Hassam (1859-1935) The Garden Door
Childe Hassam (1859-1935) The Fisherman's Cottage

Childe Hassam (1859-1935) Mrs Hassam in the Garden 1888

Childe Hassam (1859-1935) Mrs Hassam at Villiers le Bel
Childe Hassam (1859-1935). Portrait of Edith Blaney with Garden behind Her, 1894. She is reading Celia Thaxter's An Island Garden, illustrated by Hassam, published in 1894.

Frederick Childe Hassam (1859-1935). Garden 

Frederick Childe Hassam (1859-1935). An Outdoor Portrait of Miss Weir, 1909 

Frederick Childe Hassam (1859-1935). The Sea 

19C Women & Gardens - American John Singer Sargent 1856-1925

John Singer Sargent (1856-1925) Florence Fountain Boboli Gardens

John Singer Sargent was not actually brought up in America. Sargent was born in Florence, Italy, and spent his childhood & adolescence touring Europe with his American parents who had decided on a nomadic lifestyle abroad in pursuit of culture rather than a more secure existence back home.

John Singer Sargent (1856-1925) Villa di Marllia Lucca
John Singer Sargent (1856-1925)Villa di Marlia Fountain
John Singer Sargent (1856-1925) The Garden Wall

John Singer Sargent (1856-1925)Villa Torlonia Frascati
John Singer Sargent (1856-1925) Garden in Corfu
John Singer Sargent (1856-1925)Villa Torre Galli The Loggia
John Singer Sargent (1856-1925) On the Garden Veranda at Ironbound Island, Maine.

Geo Washington's (1732-1799) Gardeners at Mount Vernon

Gardeners at Mount Vernon

by Charlotte Doney, George Washington University

Digital Encyclopedia

Fred W. Smith National Library for the 

Study of George Washington at Mount Vernon

George Washington cared deeply about the appearance of his gardens, in both style & type of flora, & closely supervised the planting process at Mount Vernon. He demonstrated his love of the United States through the types of native flora that he planted on his estate. After Washington retired, first from war & then from politics, he fulfilled the image of a gentleman planter, using Mount Vernon as his own personal statement of independence & republican simplicity.

Washington loved his gardens & was constantly changing the plants used at Mount Vernon. There is little evidence to suggest, however, that he was the one gardening. There were many gardeners who worked at Mount Vernon, several of whom were indentured servants. For example, letters written from Washington to his estate manager, Lund Washington, & to John Washington, an acquaintance from King George City, Virginia, reveal that Philip Bateman served as the primary gardener at Mount Vernon between 1773 & 1785...

George Washington purchased Bateman as an indentured servant for £35 in 1773, but continued to employ his services long after the term of indenture had ended... Records indicate that an individual with the last name Bateman was still at the Mount Vernon Estate until 1787, although there is no record to confirm that it was the same Bateman. On March 20, 1773, George Washington wrote to thank John Washington for finding him a promising gardener.3 Evidence in Washington's diaries suggests that Bateman stayed at least until December 1785, around the same time Lund Washington was preparing to end his tenure as the estate manager of Mount Vernon... There is a possibility that Bateman stayed at Mount Vernon longer, perhaps under the name Philip Bater, who on April 23, 1787, agreed to continue to work at Mount Vernon for at least one more year...

Very little is known about Bateman aside from the fact that he was the gardener at Mount Vernon from 1773 to at least 1785. Although Lund Washington appreciated Bateman's talents, he did not think highly of the gardener's intellect. In October 1783, Lund Washington wrote to George Washington: "As to Bateman (the Old Gardener) I have no expectation of his ever seeking Another home—indulge him in getg Drunk now & then, & he will be happy—he is the best kitchen Gardener to be met with..."  Bateman was clearly loyal to the Washingtons & to Mount Vernon, but from the very few letters & records that mention his name it is difficult to ascertain his fate after he ended his work at Mount Vernon.

After Bateman's departure from Mount Vernon, George Washington hired a German gardener named Johann (John) Christian Ehlers who worked on the estate from 1789 to 1797. Although Washington employed Ehlers for nearly ten years, he was constantly troubled by Ehler's work ethic & drinking habits. In 1792, Washington warned his estate manager at the time, Anthony Whiting, about Ehlers: "It is my desire also that Mr. Butler will pay some attention to the conduct of the Gardener & the hands who are at work with him; so far as to see that they are not idle; for, though I will not charge them with idleness, I cannot forbear saying . . . that the matters entrusted to him appear to me to progress amazingly slow..."

Ehlers evidently did not reform his behavior. In December 1793, Washington scolded the gardener, writing, "I shall not close this letter without exhorting you to refrain from spiritous liquors—they will prove your ruin if you do not … Don’t let this be your case. Shew yourself more of a man, & a Christian, than to yield to so intolerable a vice; which cannot, I am certain (to the greatest lover of liquor) give more pleasure to sip in the poison (for it is no better) than the consequences of it in bad behaviour at the moment, & the more serious evils produced by it afterwards, must give pain..." Washington ultimately parted ways with Ehlers in 1797.

While Ehlers was still employed by Washington, another gardener named John Gottleib Richler also worked at Mount Vernon. Richler was a German servant indentured for three years in return for Washington paying for his passage from Germany to the United States...  Otherwise not much is known about Richler [not Ehlers], who presumably left Mount Vernon after his term of indenture ended.

There were many other gardeners who worked at Mount Vernon, but their personal information is scarce. Two of these gardeners were David Cowan & William Spence. David Cowan worked for Washington for a little over a year between 1773 & 1774. William Spence was hired to work at Mount Vernon as a gardener in 1797, & stayed on after Washington's death in 1799.

There is no evidence that George Washington did any physical gardening himself at Mount Vernon, but his influence on activities was still apparent. His designs determined what plants were included & how the gardens appeared. Washington was directly involved in the development & redesigning of the gardens around the mansion, especially during his two separate retirements between 1784 & 1789 & from 1779 to 1799...

Washington contributed to the look of several natural spaces at Mount Vernon, including, the vista approaching the house, the Bowling Green, & the upper & lower walled gardens. For each garden area, Washington specified the types of plants & features that he wanted. In the Bowling Green, for example, Washington had the area shaped perfectly flat, using rollers to compress the earth & planted with velvety English grass to create a lush setting.

Surrounding the Bowling Green, Washington chose shrubs & trees planted around the walkways to reflect his design aesthetic. Washington desired to have native North American plant species in his gardens to represent the splendor of flora found in the United States. In his letters, Washington wrote that he wanted "philadelphus coronarius, as sweet flowering shrub (called mock Orange)," "Pinus Strobus," "Prunis Divaricata," "Hydrangia arborescens," & "Laurus nobilis..."  Washington exercised similar influence over each of Mount Vernon’s gardens.

Research plus images & much more are available from Geo Washington's (1732-1799) home Mount Vernon website, MountVernon.org. 

Tho Jefferson (1743-1824) Writes about Gardening

 

Thomas Jefferson by Tadeusz Andrzej Bonawentura Kosciuszko (1746 - 1817) 

1809 April 27.  (Jefferson to John Barnes).  "the total change of occupation from the house & writing table to constant emploiment in the garden & farm has added wonderfully to my happiness."

John Barnes (1730-1826) was a native of Norwich, England, where he was born in 1730. At the age of thirty, in about 1760, at the height of the French & Indian War, he came to America, settling first in New York. His occupation in New York is uncertain, but he may have been a merchant. By the time of the Revolution, he was sympathetic to the American cause. When the U.S. government convened in Philadelphia, Barnes moved there from New York. He became friends with Secretary of State Jefferson. According to the newspapers of the day, Barnes was among those who accompanied the heads of the departments when the federal government moved from Philadelphia to Washington. He took up residence in Georgetown. He “lived in princely style among the gentry of that period. Statesmen, dignified & influential, gathered around his board & ‘forgot the thorns of public controversy under the roses of private cheerfulness.’’ At some point beginning around 1800 when both he & Jefferson were in Washington Barnes began to act as a sort of commission merchant/purchasing agent/investment adviser for the President. 

Research & images & much more are directly available from the Monticello.org website. 

Swept Yards

Swept Yards

The swept yard is a landscape tradition once common in America's deep South: a bare dirt area denuded of any grass, kept 'clean' by sweeping with a broom made of twigs (dogwood often was preferred). The hard red clay of the bare-earth yard would eventually become almost stone like. The swept yard was the outdoor room. 

Back in West Africa, especially due to the heat as well as space constraints, much of the cooking, washing of clothing, and gathering was done outside. Therefore for convenience, pest control, and safety issues, neighbors swept their yards with crude brooms made of twigs removing all grass, debris, and weeds from the areas surrounding their homes. Most of the cooking was done outdoors, if there were grass, then there was the possibility of a stray ash igniting the grass and starting a fire. Lawns were thought to be unnecessary and labor-intensive. In Africa, the natives were more concerned with growing crops than cutting grass. 
Sweeping the Yards in Rural South Carolina.  

With the advent of slavery in America, West African slaves brought the concept of swept yards to America. And as European settlers were preoccupied with growing crops and not grass, the swept yard concept survived for centuries in the American South. 

In 1791, William Bartram describing a typical house in Cuscowilla, GA, wrote “The dwelling stands near the middle of a square yard, encompassed by a low bank, formed with the earth taken out of the yard, which is always carefully swept.”

The swept yard is mentioned in the novel “To Kill a Mockingbird," where the Radley's had a "swept yard that was never swept." 

When you were expecting company in the South, it was said that you baked cakes and swept the yard. Martha Ogle Forman wrote from Cecil County, Maryland in 1818, "preparing for company: made cake, and had all the yards swept."

In SC, Catherine Waiters swept her yard daily. The yard broom was made of tree branches, while the house broom on the left was made of broom-straw.

19C Seed Dealer & Nurseryman W Atlee Burpee 1858-1915

Washington Atlee Burpee (1858-1915)

The W. Atlee Burpee & Company was founded by W. Atlee Burpee (1858-1915) in 1876 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Atlee was born in 1858 in New Brunswick, New Jersey.

At fourteen years of age, Atlee’s hobby was breeding chickens, geese and turkeys. He corresponded with poultry experts worldwide and wrote scholarly articles in poultry journals. With a partner in 1876, the 18 year old Atlee started a mail-order chicken business in the family home with $1,000 loaned to him by his mother.

Poultry farmers from the Northeast knew of his business, and he soon opened a store in Philadelphia, selling not only poultry but also corn seed for poultry feed. It wasn’t long before his customers started requesting cabbage, carrot, cauliflower and cucumber seeds.

In 1878, Burpee dropped his partner and founded W. Atlee Burpee & Company, mainly for garden seeds, but poultry wasn’t dropped from the Burpee catalog until the 1940s.

By 1888, the family home, Fordhook Farms, in Doylestown, Pennsylvania, was established as an experimental farm to test and evaluate new varieties of vegetables and flowers, and to produce seeds.

Before World War I, Atlee spent many summers traveling through Europe and the United States, visiting farms and searching for the best flowers and vegetables. Atlee shipped many of the vegetables and flowers he found to Fordhook Farms for testing. Those plants that survived were bred with healthier types to produce hybrids better suited to the United States. Fordhook Farms was the first laboratory to research and test seeds in this way. Fordhook Farms specialized in testing onions, beets, carrots, peas and cabbage.

In 1909, Burpee established Floradale Farms in Lompoc, California, to test sweet peas, and Sunnybrook Farms near Swedesboro, New Jersey tested tomatoes, eggplants, peppers and squashes.

In his travels, Atlee met Asa Palmer, a Pennsylvania farmer who raised beans, and who thought he had one plant that was resistant to cutworms. Burpee turned this bean plant into what is now known as the Fordhook lima bean, one of the company’s most famous items.

Another successful plant was the Golden Bantam sweet corn that the farmer William Chambers of Greenfield, Massachusetts had grown before his death. A friend of Chambers found some of the sweet corn seeds and sold Burpee seeds of the corn, and in 1902, Golden Bantam was featured in a Burpee catalog.

Before 1900 most people thought that yellow corn was fit only for animals, so in order to change their customers minds, many farmers slipped Golden Bantam corn in with the white corn they were selling. Within a few years, people in the United States were converted to yellow corn.

Iceberg lettuce was introduced in 1894 and named for its crispness. A key in Burpee’s business was the 1863 free delivery system, that required post offices to deliver mail to residents’ homes, and in 1896, free delivery was extended to rural areas. This allowed his catalogs to be delivered directly to people’s homes.

Thousands of letters were received annually from Burpee’s customers thanking him for his seeds. Burpee knew that the key to his business was advertising and the catalog was his advertising medium.

In his first year of business, his catalog was 48 pages, but by 1915 his catalogs were 200 pages and he distributed a million catalogs. Burpee personally wrote most of the copy of his catalogs. Burpee set up an advertising department and offered cash prizes for the best advertisements. This competition is what originated the slogan “Burpee Seeds Grow” in 1890.

The 1891 catalog was the first to feature engravings made from photographs, and by 1901 this process was done by machines. Burpee’s move to photography changed the whole industry and the hand-drawn illustration in catalogs disappeared. In another break with tradition, Burpee eliminated cultural information and put in testimonial letters and plant descriptions.

At Atlee’s death in 1915, the company had 300 employees, and it was the largest seed company in the world. At that time the Burpee company distributed over 1 million catalogs a year and received 10,000 orders a day.

Information from the Smithsonian Institution Libraries research..

19C American Graveyard Design Akin to 1900 BC Egyptian Funeral Gardens

In 19th C America, graveyards began to look like garden parks. Apparently, the practice dates back centuries before the birth of Christ.  In Archaeology magazine on March 20, 2018, Jarrett A Lobell writes of Funeral Gardens in Egypt.

Tomb garden, Luxor, 1900 B.C.  (Courtesy © Proyecto Djehuty/Jose Latova)

"The Tale of Sinuhe, a work of ancient Egyptian literature dating to the 12th Dynasty, around 1900 B.C., reads, “...and there was made for me a sepulchral garden, in which were fields, in front of my abode, even as is done for a chief companion.” 

The existence of funerary gardens is also known from representations in tombs from as early as the 6th Dynasty (2323–2150 B.C.). But no archaeological evidence had been found until last year, when, in front of the rock-cut tomb of a high-ranking 12th Dynasty official of the Theban court, archaeologist José Manuel Galán of the Spanish National Research Council uncovered a well-preserved garden buried under more than 15 feet of debris. 

The 10-by-6.5-foot rectangle was raised off the ground and divided into square beds. According to Galán, the Egyptians would have grown vegetables, fruits, and flowers intended as fresh offerings for the deceased, as well as small trees and shrubs. 

Galán’s team found one of these shrubs, a tamarisk complete with roots and trunk, in the corner of the garden next to a bowl of dates and other fruits, perhaps meant as offerings. In the next field season, he plans to retrieve seeds and pollen to learn what plants were available in ancient Thebes and which were chosen for religious and funerary purposes."