Snowy scene on February 6, 1923 — from the steps of the U.S. Capitol, looking toward the Library of Congress, Washington, D.C., photographer unknown, Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division.
Tag: Library of Congress
Milkweed
“Milkweed” by Mary Frances Carpenter Paschall, 1900. Part of a collection of “artistic photographs” by early women photographers donated to the Library of Congress by Frances Benjamin Johnston.
. . . I look down now. It is all changed.
Whatever it was I lost, whatever I wept for
Was a wild, gentle thing, the small dark eyes
Loving me in secret.
It is here. At a touch of my hand,
The air fills with delicate creatures
From the other world.— James Wright, “Milkweed,” The Branch Will Not Break
Garden Bloggers’ Foliage Follow Up: Whittemore House
It’s wet and gloomy again this morning (the rainy season) and nothing in the garden really inspires me at the moment. So I went back to the Frances Benjamin Johnston Collection at the Library of Congress website and searched ‘foliage.’
This was what came up, and it’s quite something.
It was the interior of Whittemore House, at Dupont Circle* in Washington, D.C. Johnston took the photo sometime between 1890 and 1920. In addition to the copious foliage, it features a leopard rug and a moose head.
The house has been the home of The Women’s National Democratic Club since 1927 and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Unfortunately, judging from the club’s website, the current decoration, while pretty, is more conventional. (Rooms are available for private parties, weddings, and special events.)
Whittemore House was built from 1892 to 1894 for opera singer Sarah Adams Whittemore, a descendant of President John Adams. She lived there until her death in 1907. The interior in the photo may be hers, as Johnston took her portrait in 1900.
Thanks to Pam at Digging for hosting Garden Bloggers’ Foliage Follow Up the 16th of every month.
*1526 New Hampshire Avenue, N.W.
Vintage landscape: wildflowers
While the hand-colored images are the stars of the recently released collection of lantern slides taken by Frances Benjamin Johnston, among the new material are these lovely black and white photographs of wildflowers. Johnston used these pictures to illustrate her popular lecture, “Wild Flower Gardening.”
The slide at the top is “Unidentified house, woodland pathway, 1920.” All the portraits of flowers below were taken between 1915 and 1927.
Wood anemone. (All labels by the Library of Congress; click any photo to enlarge it.)
Wildflowers.
Bell flower (campanula).
Woodland mushrooms.
Wildflowers in bloom.
Bell flower (campanula).
Lupin (lupinus).
Unidentified garden or park, woodland daffodils, 1920 (also the photo below).
All photos are from the Frances Benjamin Johnston Collection, Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division.
Garden Bloggers’ Bloom Day in April
I’m afraid this will have to count for my Bloom Day post this month — it’s pouring outside. To see what’s blooming in other garden bloggers’ gardens, go to May Dreams Gardens, here.
The lantern slides
This is really exciting. Yesterday, the Library of Congress released online the digital images of more than 1,000 hand-colored, glass-plate lantern slides of gardens taken (mostly) by Frances Benjamin Johnston.
The images in the collection were taken from 1895 to 1935. Originally black and white photographs, Johnston had them hand tinted and made into slides to illustrate her popular garden lectures, which she gave to garden clubs, horticultural societies, and museum audiences from 1915 to 1930. As part of the Garden Beautiful Movement, she encouraged Americans to grow gardens on tenement lots, in row-house yards and in parks, which had deteriorated from industrial pollution and neglect during the Gilded Age.
The slides have not been seen in public since Johnston last projected them during her lectures. They depict more than 200 sites — primarily private gardens — in all regions of the United States and in Europe. The entire collection, 1,130 digital images, can be found in the Library’s Prints and Photographs Online Catalog, here.
I’ve just begun to enjoy this beautiful resource, but here are 11 images that I pulled out quickly during my first enthusiastic look.
The photo above is of Chateau of Bréau, Dammarie-les-Lys, Seine-et-Marne, France. July 1925. (Click any photo to enlarge it.)
The Touchstone Garden, New York, New York. Sculpture exhibition, summer 1919.
“Cliveden,” Viscount Waldorf Astor house, Taplow, Buckingham, England. Long Garden, summer 1925.
Myron Hunt house, 200 North Grand Avenue, Pasadena, California. Garden Terrace, spring 1917.
“Inellan,” Walter Douglas house, Channel Drive, Montecito, California. Pathway to Pacific Ocean, spring 1917.
“Flagstones,” Charles Clinton Marshall house, 117 East 55th Street, New York, New York. Tea house/sleeping porch.
“Gray Gardens,” Robert Carmer Hill house, Lily Pond Lane, East Hampton, New York, New York. View to Garden Trellis.
West Potomac Park, Washington, D.C. Irises along the embankment, April 1905.
Dr. Charles William Richardson house, Chevy Chase, Washington, D.C. Irises, 1921.
“The Fens,” Lorenzo Easton Woodhouse house, Hunting Lane, East Hampton, New York. Pergola, 1914.
Unidentified city garden, probably in New York, New York. Pathway, 1922.
A selection of 250 of the color images can also be seen in a new book by house and garden historian Sam Watters, Gardens for a Beautiful America, 1895-1935: Photographs by Frances Benjamin Johnston. It will be published this month by Acanthus Press, in association with the Library. ($79, here — not yet available.)
The Library of Congress is the repository of Johnston’s personal papers and approximately 20,000 photographs. But the lantern slides lacked garden names, locations, and dates and, therefore, had not been released to general public access. Watters took on the challenge of cataloging the collection, and after five years of research in libraries and archives, he has transformed vague earlier library notations into detailed data. For example, an unlabeled slide was recognized as a prize winner in a 1922 design contest and is now identified as “The Janitor’s Garden, 137 E. 30th St., New York City.”
For more information about Frances Benjamin Johnston, see here and here.
enclos*ure 