America

Author Phebe Hanaford was inspired by her famous cousin, women's rights activist Lucretia Mott, to become a suffragist herself.  The inscription of this book reads: "To the women of future centuries of the United States of America, this record of many women of the first and second centuries whose lives were full of usefulness, and therefore worthy of renown and imitation."

This book came to the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute Library from the now defunct Panama Canal Zone Library, one of the most important libraries in Panama during the Canal Zone era.

In this novel, the titular "Gardener” is the book’s author, Mrs. Mabel Osgood Wright and “The Commuter” is based on her husband, James Osborne Wright. The dedication reads “This Book belongs to the Commuter.” The story is filled with people who love family and nature, and the black-and-white photos invite the viewer into this genteel world. The Gardener is inspired to make her husband’s home a place of beauty and serenity. Mabel Osgood Wright (American, 1859-1934) was a remarkable and accomplished woman.

More than six decades before the Panama Canal, a trans-Isthmian railroad carried thousands of travelers every month between the Atlantic and the Pacific. Crossing in this manner represented a third option to people (and freight) traveling to California (recently added to U.S. territory as a result of the war with Mexico) from the eastern United States. They could now avoid the perilous voyage around the Cape of Good Hope as well as the long trek across the great plains and Rocky Mountains.

Steaming across the oceans in high style came into fashion in the early 20th century. Glamorous ocean liner travel was as much a part of the experience as the traveler's destination until air travel dominated transportation. Ocean liners grew increasingly larger, faster, and more luxurious, and are one of the ultimate symbols of the Jazz Age and Art Deco periods. The Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Library has many trade catalogs, pattern books, sheet music covers, and other materials documenting these time periods.

The author, Alan Brock, dedicated this book to his brother, Frank Arthur Brock, who was killed in World War I. The brothers were from a famous family of fireworks makers; the family staged the celebrated Crystal Palace fireworks shows and used their factory to help provide special government war requirements during WWI. This book contains numerous illustrations of types of fireworks, firework displays, and the construction of fireworks. Several of the illustrations are colored, and there are many black and white photographs of significant fireworks displays over time.

Dedicated to Louis Comfort Tiffany’s children, this biographical account features painted portraits and landscapes completed as Tiffany traveled the world. It includes design drawings and photographs relating to every aspect of his artistic career from stained glass and jewelry to glass vessels and textiles. The cover’s unique embossed squares visually allude to the celebrated designer’s work in metal.

Cree, an Algongian language with nine dialects, is the most widely spoken aboriginal language across Canada. It is a written language using traditional syllabics, which is the text in this 1949 hymnal, which also includes a useful syllabarium. Based on shorthand, the Cree syllabic system was constructed in the mid-1800s by a Canadian Methodist missionary. Each symbol represents a consonant that can be ‘written’ four ways by directional placement. Psalms and Hymns compiler, Rev.

The first edition of Peter Henderson’s Gardening for Profit was published in 1867, two years after the Civil War ended, and sold 100,000 copies. It’s considered the first book written on market gardening in the United States. Market gardening is defined as small scale production of fruits, vegetables and flowers, from less than an acre to a few acres. In today's world, you may meet a market gardener at your local farmer's market. 

Beautiful Gardens in America (both the 1915 and 1924 editions) is Louise Shelton’s most important work and a noted work of twentieth century American gardening and cultural history. This 1924 edition includes 11 color and 274 half-tone photos (a large increase from the 1915 edition) of notable American gardens of the time. Both photos and gardens were carefully selected by the author and cover many regions of the country and varying climatic conditions.

The title may be misleading: these volumes are not how to find baby birds, but rather they are adorable pocket-sized volumes to be used for identifying bird species in New England and other Northeastern states. Volume I covers song birds, such as flycatchers, larks and sparrows; volume II includes water and game birds, hawks, and owls. The illustrations in Volume I are outline sketches but by the time Volume II was published the author was able to use photographs. Blank pages were included in the books so bird watchers could record their own observations.

Travel to Paris was a prerequisite for aspiring American painters of the late nineteenth century. Henry Ossawa Tanner (1859-1937), an African American painter born in Pittsburgh, was among the throng of artists to journey there. Tanner decided to become a painter at the age of thirteen after seeing an artist painting outdoors in a park in Philadelphia. In 1897, Tanner enrolled in the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts where he studied under Thomas Eakins (1844-1916).