Description
The Society of Little Gardens was organized in 1914, to “promote the love for and culture of growing plants, and the making of gardens in restricted spaces such as back yards and window boxes.” The Society worked closely with the Rittenhouse Square Flower Market, as well as with the Fairmount Park Commission. Members supported the War Gardens movement and collaborated with the National Forestry Association to plant memorial trees after WWI (1919) and led the early program to “restore and protect” Bartram’s Garden (1916). Early founding members included Mrs. Cornelius Stevenson, Elizabeth Wilson Fisher, Ethel Smith, Emma Worrell Lober, Bertha Anderson Clark, Mrs. Frederic A. Packard, Adeline Worrell Fisher, Eugenia C. Frost, Mrs. H. LaBarre Jayne, Margaret Deland, Beatrix Ferrand, Mrs. Henry Wolf Bikle, and Frances Clark. This collection comprises photo files gifted to PHS from the Society of Little Gardens of Philadelphia. Photographers include Ida W. Pritchett, Richard T. Dooner, "De Lardi' [possibly Alfred de Lardi]. The collection includes residential gardens and gardens of the Philadelphia Contributionship, Women's City Club, Philadelphia Art Alliance, the Mutual Assurance Company, the Print Club of Philadelphia, Girard College and the Roof Reading Room of the Main Branch of Free Library of Philadelphia. In addition, there are photographs of the gardens of Old Christ Church and the Unitarian Church on Chestnut and Van Pelt Streets, as well as the Swann Memorial Fountain on Logan Circle and views of Rittenhouse Square
