Category: landscape

Life in gardens: Kew tea house

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Kew Garden tea hse burned, LoC“Tea House, Kew Gardens,* burned by suffragettes,” February 1913, by Bain News Service, via Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division.

Twelve days earlier, Kew’s orchid house had been attacked, although much less seriously: a window was broken and some specimens were destroyed.

There was £900 of damage to the tea house building.  Unfortunately, the owners — two women — had only insured it for £500.

Olive Wharry and Lilian Lenton, of the militant Women’s Social and Political Union (WSPU), were arrested on the night of the attack and later sentenced to 18 months each in Holloway prison. Both were released early after going on hunger strikes.

WSPU members also used acid to burn the words “votes for women” into the greens of golf courses.

*Located 10 miles west of central London, U.K.

The Sunday porch: rooftop retreat

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As the summer heat comes to an end,* I thought you might enjoy this repeat porch from July 2012.

This sleeping porch for hot summer nights was added to the roof of the White House during the Taft Administration (1909 – 1913). Photo by National Photo Company, via Library of Congress.

It’s a little funny to think of the country’s first family climbing up to the roof to bed down in what is basically a shed with screened sides.

Click here to read more about sleeping porches.

*Fall officially begins on Tuesday in the northern hemisphere.

Life in gardens: more chickens

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Hugh Magnum chickens, via Duke on flickrChild with white chickens, taken between 1890 and 1922, by Hugh Mangum, via David M. Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Duke University (on flickr).

Mangum was a traveling photographer who worked along a rail circuit in North Carolina, Virginia, and West Virginia. You can see his portraits here.

Life in gardens: feeding the chickens

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Feeding chickens, ca. 1899 Georgia, Library of CongressA fenced-in backyard in Georgia, ca. 1899, via Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division.

These photos were included in one of several albums depicting African American life, which were compiled by W. E. B. Du Bois for the 1900 Paris Exposition.

Feeding chickens in ca. 1899 Georgia backyard, Library of Congress

There’s a brief history of the American backyard here.  Until the 20th century, it was a space for work, not recreation.