Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division – Page 55

Vintage landscape: garden of the mind

December 5, 2013April 11, 2016 Cindy at enclos*ure7 Comments

“Young mother, twenty-five, says, ‘Next year we’ll be painted and have a lawn and flowers,’ rural shacktown, near Klamath Falls, Oregon,” September 1939.

Photo and caption by Dorothea Lange for the U.S. Farm Security Administration, via Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division.

‘Established’ is a good word, much used in garden books,
‘The plant, when established’. . .
Oh, become established quickly, quickly, garden!
For I am fugitive, I am very fugitive —

— Mary Ursula Bethell, from “Time“

Vintage landscape: pin-able

December 4, 2013April 13, 2016 Cindy at enclos*ure4 Comments

Sorry about this, but I couldn’t resist. It’s just some mid-week silliness.

“Watering the flowers,” c. 1914, by Harry Whittier Frees, via Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division (both photos).

Oh, go ahead and click that button.

Frees, an American photographer, began taking posed pictures of animals in 1906. They soon became popular on novelty postcards and calendars and in advertisements, magazines, and children’s books. (More here.)

“Planting time.”

The Sunday porch: vine-covered, par excellence

December 1, 2013April 13, 2016 Cindy at enclos*ure2 Comments

On abandon, uncalled for but called forth. . . .*

I think this is the loveliest wisteria I have ever seen. It grew on the porch columns of “Wisteria House,” at Massachusetts Avenue and Eleventh Street, N.W., in Washington, D.C. The photo was taken in 1919, by Martin A. Gruber.**

The house was torn down in 1924 to make room for the Wisteria Mansion apartment building.

A naval officer brought the vine from China and gave it to the owner of the house, probably during the 1860s, according to the blog Greater Greater Washington.

The Harris & Ewing** photo above, taken between 1910 and 1920, shows the trunks of the (one?) plant emerging through openings at the base of the porch. The house was built in 1863, and the two-story portico was added in 1869 — so it looks like the wisteria was planted between those years and protected during the construction.

The National Photo Company image above shows the house about 1920.

*Lucie Brock-Broido, from “Extreme Wisteria“

**Top and second (a detail of the first) photos via the Smithsonian Institution Archives Commons on flickr. Third and fourth photos via Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division.

Vintage landscape: burning the leaves

November 28, 2013February 9, 2014 Cindy at enclos*ure5 Comments

“Burning the autumn leaves on Broadway in Norwich, Connecticut,” November 1940, by Jack Delano.

Today, they might be advised to do this.

Both photos via the Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division.

Have a happy Thanksgiving Day!

The winter garden: Illinois farmhouse

November 23, 2013April 13, 2016 Cindy at enclos*ure3 Comments

“Window of farmhouse living room. Mercer County, Illinois. Hired man lives in house on farm which was formerly residence of owner-operator,” November 1936. Photo and caption by Russell Lee, via Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division.