Vintage landscape: Pau, France

Pau from Jurançon, Pyrenees, FrancePau from Jurançon, Pyrenees, France,” between ca. 1890 and ca. 1900, by Detroit Publishing Co., via Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division.

The image is part of the Library’s collection of photochroms, which includes many views of the architecture, monuments, and landscapes of France.

The Sunday porch: the Berry’s

The Berry house“Berry’s house,” between 1910 and 1925,* probably near Selma, California, by National Photo Company, via Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division (all photos here).

I think this is the farm that Ethel and Clarence Berry bought near her parents’ home in Selma after they became millionaires in the Klondike gold rush.

Ethel was one of the first women miners to go to Alaska, leaving right after her wedding in 1896. The next spring, the couple struck it amazingly rich on the Eldorado and Bonanza Creeks.

When she arrived in Seattle that summer — headed to the bank alone with $100,000 in gold that she’d kept hidden in her bedroll — she was immediately embraced by the popular press as the “Bride of the Klondike.”

The Berrys invested their money in more Alaskan mines (and in oil) and stayed rich.  They moved between the farm in Selma and a home in Alaska until Clarence’s death in 1930. Ethel then moved to Beverly Hills.  She died there in 1948.


*I suspect the photos were taken closer to the earlier year given, judging from the photo of Ethel and her sister (after ‘Continue reading’). Ethel would have been 37 years old in 1910.

Continue reading “The Sunday porch: the Berry’s”

Vintage landscape: O cabbage gardens

cabbage garden, FBJohnson collection, Library of CongressCabbages in the vegetable garden of Chelmsford, Greenwich, Connecticut, ca. 1914, by Frances Benjamin Johnston, via Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division.

Alaska cabbage garden, via Library of CongressA cottage garden in Alaska, between 1909-1920. By National Photo Company, via Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division.

Puerto Rico cabbage garden, ca. 1941, J. Delano, Library of CongressWoman in her garden, Puerto Rico, Winter 1941/42, by Jack Delano, via Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division.

cabbage garden, Maxey Hse, Paris TX, flickrThe vegetable garden and cold frames of the Maxey House, Paris, Texas, undated, from the Samuel Bell Maxey Collection, via Texas State Archives Commons on flickr.

Norris gardenMrs. Jim Norris with homegrown cabbage, Pie Town, New Mexico, October 1940, by Russell Lee, via Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division.

eternity swallows up time
                        O cabbage gardens
summer’s elegy
                        sunset survived

Susan Howe, from “Cabbage Gardens

Life in gardens: coleslaw, anyone?

cabbage, Library New Zealand“A cook holding up a giant cabbage at a camp in Wairarapa[, New Zealand],” ca. 1890s, photographer unknown, via National Library of New Zealand.

One of my favorite coleslaws is made by tossing shredded cabbage, a chopped apple or underripe mango, and some chopped peanuts with the dressing part of Vietnamese green papaya salad (recipe here).

At Samoa, hardly unpacked, I commenced planting. . .
I plant cabbage by moonlight, set out more cacao.
The heart of a death’s-head moth beats a tattoo in my hand.

Carolyn Kizer, from “Fanny

Jamaica Bay, New York

Vintage landscape/enclos*ure: Jamaica Bay vegetable garden, 1973, by A. Tress, via National ArchivesBroad Channel, marginal land in Jamaica Bay near the JFK Airport. New York City owns this land and leases it for five year periods. This renter is cultivating a vegetable garden.”

Arthur Tress took this picture* in May 1973 for DOCUMERICA, a program of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, which “photographically document[ed] subjects of environmental concern” from about 1972 to 1977.

Note that the house is raised on pilings, as well as the walkway from the back door to the garden.

There are more pictures from DOCUMERICA here.


*Via the U.S. National Archives Commons on flickr. Caption by photographer or EPA.