Category: garden design

The Sunday porch: Dyess Colony

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Porch, Dyess Colony, Arkansas, 1940, Library of CongressBeautiful elephant ears. This porch belonged to a farming family who were “resettled” in “Colonization Project No. 1” in Mississippi County, Arkansas.

The photos* were taken in August 1935 by Arthur Rothstein. He was on assignment for the U.S. Farm Security Administration.

Children, Dyess Colony, Arkansas, 1940, Library of Congres

The government-sponsored agricultural community had just been established the year before — the brainchild of local cotton planter William Reynolds Dyess, who was also Director of the Arkanasas Emergency Relief Administration.

Family, Dyess Colony, Arkansas, 1940, Library of Congres

Dyess wanted to provide aid to displaced tenant farmers and sharecroppers. His idea was to put 800 families on 20 to 40-acre uncleared bottomland plots with new houses.

Dyess Colony, Arkansas, 1940, Library of Congres

The project — scaled back to 500 families — was underwritten by the New Deal Federal Emergency Relief Administration. (It was absorbed by the Farm Security Administration in 1944 and made independent of the federal government in 1951. )

“The colony was laid out in a wagon-wheel design, with a community center at the hub and farms stretching out from the middle. . ,” according to the online Encyclopedia of Arkansas. “Each house had five rooms with an adjacent barn, privy, and chicken coop. . . , plus a front and back porch.”

Another Dyess Colony House, Arkansas, 1935, Library of Congress
Another colony house with a mass of flowers along the front path.

Dyess was killed in a plane crash in 1936, and the colony was given his name.

Among the resettled farmers — all of whom were white — was the father of country singer Johnny Cash.  Cash lived  in house #266 from the age  of three until his high school graduation in 1950.

Today, Arkansas State University has restored the Cash home (open to the public) and is working on an adjacent original colony home, as well as the administration building and theater.

Sharecropper's house, Dyess Colony, Arkansas, 1935, Library of Congress

The 1935 photo above by Ben Shahn was captioned, “Sharecropper’s house optioned. Dyess Colony, Arkansas.”  I’m not sure what that means, but the picture gives an example of original local farm housing.

I like the small semi-circle of trees and the two chairs facing out on the left side.

*All photos but the last were by Rothstein, taken in August 1935. All are via Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division.

Life in gardens: Woodbine

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Woodbine, Iowa, 1940, J. Vachon, Library of Congress“Planting a garden in the backyard, Woodbine, Iowa,” May 1940, by John Vachon, via Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division (both photos here).

Woodbine, Iowa, 1940, Library of Congress

In the spring of 1940, John Vachon was on assignment for the Farm Security Administration in the Midwest.

. . . I photographed Spring – clothes blowing on the wash line, kids playing marbles, women planting backyard gardens, blossoms on trees.

— John Vachon’s journal

Woodbine is a town of about 1,400 people on the Boyer River.  It was named for the woodbine vine (Parthenocissus vitacea) by the wife of the first postmaster, according to the community’s website.

The Sunday porch: Eutaw

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Eutaw, S.C., 1938, Library of Congress“The Lodge” at Eutaw Plantation, Berkeley County, South Carolina, 1938, by Frances Benjamin Johnston, via Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division.

Eutaw Plantation, South Carolina, 1938, via Library of Congress
The plantation was established by William and Elizabeth Sinkler in the early 1800s.  Their descendants owned it until the 1940s, when the South Carolina Public Service Authority flooded the area to build the Santee Cooper hydroelectric project.  The estate now lies beneath Lake Marion.

The Lodge — built to resemble a Greek temple — was used as a medical office by a physician member of the family.

I came to explore the wreck. . . .
I came to see the damage that was done
and the treasures that prevail.

— Adrienne Rich, from “Diving into the Wreck“

A study in steps: pink umbrella

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A glimpse of an old Japanese garden. . .

Steps in a Japanese garden, ca. 1900, Natl. Museum of DenmarkA hand-colored photo taken between 1860 and 1910, from a collection that belonged to journalist Holger Rosenberg,  via National Museum of Denmark.

Unfortunately, the museum does not have any other information about this image.

When has an umbrella ever
Kept the rain and the mist from entering a heart
And shaking it with dreams?

— Luis Muñoz Marin, from “Umbrella“

The Sunday porch: wisteria par excellence

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In honor of the wisteria now beginning to bloom in many regions, here is a Sunday porch redux from 2013:

On abandon, uncalled for but called forth. . . .*

full cropped

I think this is the loveliest wisteria I have ever seen.  It grew on the porch columns of “Wisteria House,” at Massachusetts Avenue and Eleventh Street, N.W., in Washington, D.C. The photo was taken in 1919, by Martin A. Gruber.**

The house was torn down in 1924 to make room for the Wisteria Mansion apartment building.

Wisteria House detail, 1919, via Smithsonian Institution Commons

A naval officer brought the vine from China and gave it to the owner of the house, probably during the 1860s, according to the blog Greater Greater Washington.

Wisteria House, Harris & Ewing photo

The Harris & Ewing** photo above, taken between 1910 and 1920, shows the trunks of the (one?) plant emerging through openings at the base of the porch.  The house was built in 1863, and the two-story portico was added in 1869 — so it looks like the wisteria was planted between those years and protected during the construction.

Wisteria House, LOC photo

The National Photo Company image above shows the house about 1920.

*Lucie Brock-Broido, from “Extreme Wisteria“

**Top and second (a detail of the first) photos via the Smithsonian Institution Archives Commons on flickr.  Third and fourth photos via Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division.