Vintage landscape: wishful thinking

Cross Manor, St. Mary's County, MD, Library of CongressCross Manor, near St. Mary’s City, Maryland, 1936 or 37, by Frances Benjamin Johnston, via Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division.

Some big boxwood love. The house (with 110 acres) still exists and may be the oldest in Maryland.  Click here to see photos from 2013, when Ted Koppel lived there.

Vintage landscape: Cairo, Egypt

Cairo garden, Matson Photo Service, Library of Congress“Cairo’s public gardens on Gezireh,” between 1950 and 1977, hand-colored slide by Matson Photo Servicevia Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division.

This garden may have been located on or near the current site of the Cairo Marriott Hotel.

Vintage landscape: Lake Mohonk, N.Y.

nypl.digitalcollections.Lake Mohonk HouseThe flower gardens of Lake Monhonk Mountain House, Ulster County, New York, ca. 1902, a postcard by Detroit Publishing Co., via The New York Public Library Digital Collections.

Lake Mohonk Mountain House is a resort founded in 1879 by Albert Smiley, a “passionate gardener,” and a Quaker deeply concerned with the cause of world peace. (From 1895 to 1916, he convened annual conferences on international arbitration at the hotel.) The main building, shown on the postcard above, has 259 guest rooms and is now a National Historic Landmark.

Life in gardens: elephant ride

Zoological Park, Lisbon, Bibliotheca de Arte, Lisbon, flickr.Jardim Zoológico, Lisbon, Portugal, 1927, by Mário Novais, via Biblioteca de Arte / Art Library Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian on flickr (used under CC license).

The Lisbon Zoo was founded in 1884 and moved to its current location in 1905. This may be a photo of the zoo’s first African elephant, which it received in 1926, a gift from the King of Italy.

Life in gardens: a capital view

field trip, WashDC, 1899, FB Johnston, Library of CongressThird grade school pupils on field trip, standing on the west terrace of the U.S. Capitol Building, Washington, D.C.,” ca. 1899, by Frances Benjamin Johnston, via Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division.

In 1899, Johnston became interested in progressive education and made a photo survey of students at public schools in Washington, D.C.