Vintage landscape: Fredericksburg, Virginia

Mary Ball House, FB Johnston, Library of CongressMary Ball Washington house, Fredericksburg, Virginia, 1927, a hand-colored glass lantern slide by Frances Benjamin Johnston, via Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division.

The house was the last home of George Washington’s mother.  It still exists and is open to the public.  The garden was restored in 1968 to reflect how it might have looked between 1772 and 1789.

Vintage landscape: Thornedale

Thornedale, F.B. Johnston, Library of Congress

Sugar maple allée at “Thornedale,” Millbrook, New York, 1919, hand-colored glass lantern slide by Frances Benjamin Johnston, via Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division.

Helen Stafford Thorne is credited with the garden’s design. The estate still exists under family ownership.

The Sunday porch: Puerto Rico

Puerto Rico, Library of CongressPuerto Rico or the Virgin Islands, winter 1941/42, by Jack Delano, via Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division.

Vintage landscape: front walk

Alaska cabin, Library of CongressLog cabin in Alaska, probably Fairbanks, between 1900 and 1916, via Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division.

The photograph is one of over sixteen thousand created or collected by Frank G. Carpenter and his daughter Frances to illustrate his geography textbooks and popular travel books.

There are three more charming Alaska log cabins from the same collection here, here, and here.

Life in gardens: Washington, D.C.

Kindergarten in a vegetable garden, FB Johnston, Library of Congress“Kindergarten in a vegetable garden,” Washington, D.C., ca. 1899, by Frances Benjamin Johnston, via Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division.

Before she became immersed in the work of photographing old houses and gardens, Johnston was a photojournalist and a portraitist. In 1899, she became interested in progressive education and made a photo survey of students at public schools in Washington, D.C.