Gardens For a Beautiful America 1895-1935

This book presents, in all their glory, the hand-colored glass slide photographs of Frances Ben­jamin Johnston (1864-1952). It is a beautiful pictorial book, yet scholarly and well researched. Johnston was one of the earliest professional American women photographers. She trained as an artist in Paris, studied photography here at the Smithsonian, and began her career doing portrait and news photography. Her focus turned to gardens and historic houses, and she became an advo­cate of Progressive movements like City Beautiful and historic preservationism. Author Sam Watters has written a short biography and a fascinating chapter on the history of gar­den photography during this period and then allows the lovely reproduction of 250 hand-colored lantern slides to tell the story of American gardens over a forty-year period. The presen­tation of the photographs is divided into five sections: Gardens of the East, Gardens of the West (California), Gardens for City and Suburb, Gardens of the Old World and Gardens of the South.