World War I victory garden in a formal setting, location unknown,* ca. 1917 – ca. 1920, by Harris & Ewing, via Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division.
The photo seems to have been taken for the National War Garden Commission, also known as the National Emergency Food Garden Commission.
The organization was created in early 1917 by Charles Lathrop Pack. It sponsored a campaign of pamphlets, posters, and press releases aimed at “arous[ing] the patriots of America to the importance of putting all idle land to work, to teach them how to do it, and to educate them to conserve by canning and drying all food that they could not use while fresh.”
Like it or not, what you do with the land around your house tells the world what sort of citizen you are.
*Harris & Ewing was located in Washington, D.C.
enclos*ure 