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This ongoing collection consists of finding aids created for the archival holdings of the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society (1827- ). Included are guides to historical materials such more as the PHS minute books, administrative records, and PHS initiatives and programs for events including the Philadelphia Flower Show and Philadelphia Green. Finding aids also cover the extensive image file collections, glass slides, and ephemera connected with the activities of the Society. less

This collection is comprised of images created sometime between 1928 and 1950 by Philadelphia photographer, Ida W. Pritchett. A 1914 graduate of Bryn Mawr College, Pritchett more received her doctorate from Johns Hopkins University, and held an appointment at the Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research in New York where her work focused on pathology and bacteriology. She left the Rockefeller Institute in 1930 to pursue a professional life in photography. In 1928, Pritchett's photograph titled the "Luminous Globe" was included in the Royal Photographic Society's Annual Exhibition. Following on, she exhibited her work in the 1930 International Photographic Exhibition, Tokyo, and the Philadelphia International Salon of Photography sponsored by the Philadelphia Museum of Art. As a working photographer, Pritchett provided photographic illustrations for various publications, for example, "A Viking Drinking Cup--Birch Knob" for inclusion in Sir Wilfred Grenfell's The Romance of Labrador. With her friend, Marjorie LaMonte Thompson, she co-published a book of photographs documenting the buildings, interior spaces and grounds of Bryn Mawr College. Pritchett retired in the early 1950s and she and Thompson divided their time between their homes in Haverford and Sandwich, New Hampshire until her death in 1965. This digital project is supported in part by a 2022 National Endowment for the Humanities Sustaining the Humanities Through the American Rescue Plan (SHARP) grant. less

James Lawrence Dillon (1859-1942) was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania to Irish immigrants James and Annie Eleanor Dillon. His mother died when he was 4, and his more father when he was 11. In 1886, James married Mary Beck Fisher. They had two children, Florence Hazel Dillon Jacoby (1887-1986) and Theodore Fisher “Jack” Dillon (1890-1979). James Dillon was proprietor of a successful photography business in Philadelphia, James L. Dillon & Co., Inc, Photographers, located at 1017 Chestnut Street, Philadelphia. Among other subjects, Dillon’s photography company documented many architectural projects in and around Philadelphia including churches, private residences, banks, government buildings, cultural institutions, commercial enterprises, factories, and area hospitals. The business continued after his death (April 6, 1942) at least into the 1960s. This lantern slide collection of approximately 277 images, mostly executed in the 1920s, captures another, more artistic side of Dillon’s photography. Images in this collection include many plant portraits, fruit and flower studies, garden images, friends and family in gardens, and Philadelphia views such as Logan Square, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, Fairmount Park and the Wissahickon. The collection also contains views of the William Hinckle Smith garden in Bryn Mawr, the Widener estate Lynnewood Hall in Elkins Park, and Longwood Gardens in Kennett Square, Pennsylvania. Views of national parks in the United States and Canada and images of the Bermuda Islands are also represented. Many of the lantern slides were produced using the Autochrome Lumière color photography process, giving the carefully composed images a luminous beauty and dream-like quality. The lantern slide collection was given to PHS McLean Library & Archives by Dillon family descendant Ginger Hankins in 2021. This digital project is supported in part by a National Endowment for the Humanities Sustaining the Humanities Through the American Rescue Plan (SHARP) grant. less

Jay Veeder Hare (1878 -1953) was born in Schodack, New York. He attended the Peirce School in Philadelphia and graduated from Temple University Law School. He more began his long career with the Reading Company in 1897 as a junior clerk who rose through the ranks, retiring from the railroad in 1945 as secretary and treasurer of the Reading Company, parent company of the Reading Railway System. He wrote the first in-depth history of the Reading Company. He was an avid gardener and a founder of the Trevose Horticultural Society in Trevose, Pennsylvania, where he lived at Hareacres with his wife Jean (Weber) Hare and daughters Jean and Nancy. He was a member of the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society’s executive council from 1929 to 1949. Mr. Hare gave many illustrated lectures on plants and gardens based on his extensive world travels. He obtained lantern slides from commercial photography houses such as Williams, Brown & Earle and the William H. Rau Company in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; T.Takagi Photo Company in Kobe, Japan and T. Ikeda in Tokyo, Japan; Lévy et Neurdein Réunis in Paris, France; and Arxiu Mas in Barcelona, Spain. His lectures were supplemented by his own photography. The collection is strong in images from Japan, Italy, Spain, the United States and Switzerland, with representation from Bermuda, England, Ireland, France, Monaco, Germany, New Zealand, and South Africa. The images, many of which are hand-colored, depict typical or famous gardens, well-known city parks, tourist views of areas of spectacular natural beauty such as waterfalls and picturesque coastlines, as well as individual plant portraits. Many of the gardens and much of the landscape have changed significantly in the past 100 years or have disappeared entirely. For example, the views of Japan include chrysanthemum festivals, Japanese gardens, flower arranging for tea ceremonies, tea gardens, farmers picking tea leaves, and men, women and children in traditional Japanese dress – all evoke a time that no longer exists. In addition to an avid interest in gardens and plants, Jay V. Hare was also a birder and member of the Delaware Valley Ornithological Club. The lantern slide collection was given to PHS McLean Library & Archives by daughter Nancy Veeder Koltes in 2008.This digital project is supported in part by a National Endowment for the Humanities Sustaining the Humanities Through the American Rescue Plan (SHARP) grant. less

The Joseph Ascenzi Collection consists of 64 color and black-and-white glass lantern slides, most were produced by the J. Horace McFarland Company, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, and Williams, more Brown & Earle Inc. of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, between approximately 1920-1940. Many of the Williams, Brown & Earle slides focus primarily on trees in-situ and include images of Sycamores, Poplars, and Oaks among others. In addition, the William, Brown, & Earle slides contain images from three series titled “Spring’s Awakening” featuring woodland plants, “Botany,” and “A Summer’s Ramble.” The J. Horace McFarland slides in the collection typically center on foundation plantings around entryways and corner plantings around suburban houses. The collector, Joseph M. Ascenzi, is the horticulturist and president of Laurel Hill Gardens (Chestnut Hill, Philadelphia). This digital project is supported in part by a National Endowment for the Humanities Sustaining the Humanities Through the American Rescue Plan (SHARP) grant. less

This collection documents the history of the Neighborhood Garden Association of Philadelphia founded in 1953 by noted horticulturist, activist, author and educator Louise Bush-Brown. The images more depict the earliest collaborative efforts of the Association, neighbors, garden clubs, and settlement houses who worked together to green and beautify neighborhoods and vacant lots throughout the City beginning with the first garden block on Mercy Street sponsored by St. Martha’s Settlement in Southeast Philadelphia and the now lost Ken-Watt Court a collaboration with the storied United Neighbors Association in 1953 to its partnership with the Penn State Extension to establish the first demonstration garden in the Mantua section of West Philadelphia in 1965. Louise Carter, born in 1897, graduated from the Pennsylvania School of Horticulture for Women in 1916. After a variety of jobs, Carter came back to the school in 1924 as their director. In 1925, she married James Bush-Brown, the school’s landscape design instructor. Louise Bush-Brown went on to direct the school for 28 years, retiring in 1952. She was an integral part of the school’s success. She also authored and co-authored several books with her husband, most notably America’s Garden Book written in 1939. In 1953, she founded the Neighborhood Garden Association of Philadelphia, and won the National Recreation Award for the Neighborhood Garden Project in 1959. Later, in 1967, she was invited to the White House to speak at the Natural Beauty and Citizen Participation Conference about her work. She died in 1974. The formal perennial gardens at the Ambler Arboretum are named in her honor. This digital project is supported in part through a 2020 NEH Cares Grant, National Endowment for the Humanities. less

This collection consists of documentation related to the Philadelphia Flower Show from 1829 to the present including tickets, advertisements, posters and high-quality photographs to exhibits and more promotional events. Some of the images include buildings that no longer exist, such as Philadelphia's Commercial Museum and Civic Center. less

The Garden Club of Philadelphia was established in 1904 by Mrs. J. Willis Martin and Miss Ernestine Goodman to promote an interest in gardens, their design, more and management. The garden club held meetings, conducted horticultural research, attended lectures, and participated in civic endeavors. In 1913, several members of the Garden Club of Philadelphia joined with several women from other local gardening associations to form the larger Garden Club of America. This collection, comprised of more than 300 views on glass, most hand-tinted, focuses on individual private gardens in and around Philadelphia, eastern Pennsylvania, and New Jersey. The images provide unique documentation of gardens that are either “lost” or have been significantly altered during the last half of the 20th-century and include multiple views of the estate gardens of Andalusia, Stenton, Highlands, and Ludington among many others. This digital project is supported by a grant from the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission. less

The noted scholar, horticulturist, and landscape architect John Caspar Wister (1887-1982) focused on eastern Pennsylvanian climate and ecology through his work as first director of both more the Tyler Arboretum (Media, Pennsylvania) and the Scott Arboretum (Swarthmore College). This collection, comprised of more 400 views on glass, most hand-tinted, illustrated Wister's popular lectures, which he delivered to garden club members, college and university audiences, and horticultural societies in Philadelphia and throughout the United States from 1920s through the 1930s. The slides depict approximately 100 sites--primarily Philadelphia public and private gardens, parks and landscapes, and individual views of plant specimens. Geographically, the slides feature the American East and West, with Europe represented by Switzerland, Germany, France and England, and includes an unattributed subset devoted to China, Japan and Hawaii. This digital project is supported in part by a grant from the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission. less

This collection is comprised of photographic images documenting designed landscapes both private and public in and around Philadelphia. Digitized materials include early-twentieth century views of private, more public, and corporate gardens documented in the collection of the Society of Little Gardens of Philadelphia. In addition, the PHS Collection Portfolios document the activities the Rittenhouse Square Flower Market as well as materials connected to the School Gardens Movement in Philadelphia through the Perla A. Matthews photograph collection. Included are photographs taken by noted Canadian photographer Clara Sipprell (1885-1975) and Philadelphia photographer, Ida W. Pritchett of the Alba B. Johnson estate “Castana,” in Rosemont, Pennsylvania.  In addition, are the images of Edge Hill, the estate of Samuel W. Morris that depict the gardens designed by landscape architect Ellen Biddle Shipman (1869-1950) and photographed by "Mrs. Gillingham" [Mrs. C. Stratton Howe Gillingham] and Mattie Edwards Hewitt (1869-1956). This digital project is supported in part by a grant from the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission. less

This collection documents activities and projects undertaken by or in partnership with the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society from its inception in 1827 to the 21st Century (apart more from Philadelphia Flower Show documentation, which is in a separate collection). The bulk of the material is from originals dating from 1940 - 2010. Consisting of scanned documents and photographic images, born-digital images, and digitized video and audio clips, this collection documents Philadelphia-area horticultural activity including:  WWII Victory Garden Harvest Shows; PHS’s work from 1970s forward on urban greening projects created in concert with community leaders and activists; major projects on public landscape revitalization; and vacant land stabilization. This collection traces the trajectory of PHS’s urban greening initiatives starting in the 1970s as its Philadelphia Green program, which, over time, helped Philadelphians create hundreds of community gardens, plant thousands of trees to beautify and cool the city’s streets, to revitalize Philadelphia’s neighborhood parks and to bring new life to iconic public landscapes. Additionally, the collection includes digital images of Meadowbrook Farm a 25-acre property in Abington, Pennsylvania, bequeathed to PHS in 2003 and material related to PHS’s first Pop Up Garden in 2011.  The collection is supported in part through a 2020 NEH Cares Grant, National Endowment for the Humanities. less