“President Jimmy Carter and Egyptian President Anwar Sadat have refreshments in the garden of the White House,” April 8, 1980, Washington, D.C. Photo credited to Marion S. Trikosko and Warren K. Leffler,via Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division.*
The previous spring, Sadat and Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin had signed the Egypt-Israel Peace Treaty on the White House lawn.
*U.S. News & World Report Magazine Photograph Collection.
“Sidewalk in front of White House, Washington, D.C.,” early 1920s, by Harris & Ewing, via Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division.
Whan that Aprill with his shoures sote
The droghte of Marche hath perced to the rote,
And bathed every veyne in swich licour,
Of which vertu engendred is the flour. . .
— Geoffrey Chaucer, from “The General Prologue” of The Canterbury Tales
Translation: April showers bring May flowers.
Today is Whan that Aprille Day — a day to enjoy “alle langages that are yclept ‘old,’ or ‘middel,’ or ‘auncient,’ or ‘archaic,’ or, alas, even ‘dead.’” This is the idea of @LeVostreGC (or Chaucer Doth Tweet), who blogs at Geoffrey Chaucer Hath a Blog.
Entrance porch of the Peter Neff Cottage, Kenyon College, Gambier, Ohio. Photo taken 1951 by Perry E. Borchers for an Historic American Buildings Survey (HABS), via Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division.
Another 1951 photo of the porch, also by Perry E. Borchers for the HABS (cropped by me).
The HABS report for this house said it “may be the finest example of Gothic Revival cottage style and wood detail in Ohio.” It was built about 1860 for Peter Neff, a co-inventor of the tintype and an alumnus and benefactor of Kenyon College.
All was not happy in this charming abode, however. Neff quarreled with nearby Kenyon over the bells of the campus’s Church of the Holy Spirit, “which he claimed had driven him to the brink of nervous collapse,” according to the Historic Campus Architecture Project.
“Place yourself and family in my location, about seven hundred feet distant,” he wrote in a 19-page open letter. “How would you like this ding dong every fifteen minutes? . . . [It is] machinery wearing out flesh and blood to those who have any nerves. It is too much bell-ringing . . . it is a sickening nuisance.”
Neff finally moved away from the campus and its bells in 1888.
The house is now named Clifford* Place and is the residence of the Dean of Students.
*The name of one of Neff’s daughters.
“View of a scene in Jackson, Mississippi,” c. 1869, probably taken by Elisaeus von Seutter.
Below are detail views.
This is another photo from the E. von Seutter Photograph Collection of the Mississippi Department of Archives and History — 35 stereocards and 48 photographs of Jackson after the Civil War assembled by the von Seutter family. Most were taken by Elisaeus and his son, Armine.
There are also more images of Ivy Cottage (from Tuesday’s post) after ‘Continue reading’ below.
Continue reading “Life in gardens: Jackson, Mississippi”
“Cherry Flower-Street, at Mukojima, Tokio,” ca. 1880s -90s, by Kimbei Kusakabe, via The New York Public Library Commons.
There’s a good article on the 2014 cherry blossom viewing (hanami) in Tokyo — which starts this week — here.
The arrival of the cherry blossom is keenly anticipated, with round-the-clock news reports providing updates on exactly where and when the fabled flowers will appear alongside all manner of sakura-themed promotions. Advertisements currently on display in the Tokyo Metro suggest that drinking Kirin beer will enhance the hanami experience, and should you be feeling peckish, McDonald’s has helpfully introduced a “cherry blossom burger”, complete with “pink buns”.
— Adrian Bridge, The Telegraph
*Photography Collection, Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Division of Art, Prints and Photographs. A cherry blossom photo from the same collection here.
enclos*ure 