“Deux femmes assises dans un jardin” (two women sitting in a garden), France, between 1859 and 1910, by Eugène Trutat, via Bibliothèque de Toulouse Commons on flickr.
On this clipped green throne, she could take in the sun and still be protected from the chilly winter or early spring breezes.
We can make do with so little, just the hint
of warmth, the slanted light.— Molly Fisk, from “Winter Sun“
“Grounds workers at White House, Washington, D.C.,” March 1936, by Harris & Ewing, via Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division. (You can click on the photo to enlarge it.)
The National Park Service has maintained the White House gardens since 1933.
. . . [W]hile lawns are cultural (in the sense that they are meaning-laden), they are not the product of some pre-existing “culture,” and are instead the meaningful expression of political and economic forces. . . . Lawns are propelled into the landscape both by economic imperatives (e.g., real estate growth) and also by intentional and thoughtful efforts to produce certain kinds of subjects. Lawns are a strategy, therefore, both for capital accumulation and making docile and responsible citizens.
— Paul Robbins, from Lawn People: How Grasses, Weeds, and Chemicals Make Us Who We Are (p. 32)
enclos*ure 