Women in the garden in Japan, late 19th to early 20th century, via Photographs of Japan Collection, The Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Division of Art, The New York Public Library.
Category: nature
Vintage landscape: Louisville, Kentucky
Colonnade, Central Park, Louisville, Kentucky, between 1900 and 1910, Detroit Publishing Co., via Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division.
The park’s 17 acres were owned by the Dupont family in the 1870s, yet open for public use as “Dupont Square.” In 1883, the space — temporarily “roofed in” — was used to demonstrate Thomas Edison’s light bulb.
In 1904, the Duponts sold the land to the city, and Frederick Law Olmsted, who was already working in Louisville, designed a large open-air shelter and colonnade for the park’s high point. The colonnade still exists and is undergoing restoration.
Vintage landscape: irises
“Garden with flowers,” between 1906 and 1942, an autochrome by Arnold Genthe, via Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division.
The Sunday porch: recorded
“Mrs. Alberta Kimball, Mrs. Minnie Smith, and Mrs. Emily Elizabeth Fulks, at the home of Mrs. Fulks, Prairie Lea,* Texas,” September 1940, by Ruby Terrill Lomax, via Lomax Collection, Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division.
The three women were folk musicians. Alone or in duets, they sang songs like “Swedes Blessing,” “There was a Wealthy Merchant,” “Way Out West in Texas,” “Barbara Allen,” and “The Gypsy’s Warning.” Unfortunately, I can’t find an online recording of them. They look delightful in these pictures, however, particularly in those flowered dresses.
These are four snapshots from four hundred made during the sound recording expeditions of the Lomax family. From 1934 to around 1950, John Avery Lomax, Ruby Terrill Lomax, and Alan Lomax traveled the southern United States and the Bahamas collecting folk music and folklore for the Library of Congress.
There’s a previous “Sunday porch” from the Lomax Collection here.
Our world, so worn and weary,
Needs music, pure and strong,
To hush the jangle and discords
Of sorrow, pain, and wrong.
*These photos were labeled with the location as Prairie Lea or Prairie Lea R.F.D., but also as Stanton, Texas. Prairie Lea and Stanton are in different parts of Texas, and I have been unable to find out which town is correct. The labels on the sound recordings the women made say “Prairie Lea” — which certainly sounds like a place in a folk song.
Life in gardens: a girl has a name
Margaret Granville Wandooline (“Wanda”) Stuart . . . posing with “Garrick” at her home in Toowong, Brisbane, Queensland, 1899, photographer unknown, via State Library of Queensland Commons on flickr.
Wanda was the daughter of P. W. G. Stuart, private secretary to the Governor of Queensland.
This is the last post in this week’s theme, “children made to pose in gardens.”
