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Project Scope "Keepers of Trees: A Cultural History of North American Arboreta and Arborphilia, 1700-2000" is the current working title of a
research project I hope to complete and publish in the next two years. In
order to provide an outline of my evolving conception of the project for
academic colleagues, research sponsors, and professional staff at sites I am
studying, I have devised this work-in-progress document. I update it when
appropriate. My research involves investigating, comparing, and analyzing approximately forty-five public and private institutions and sites in their botanical, artistic, and spatial development beginning with John Bartram's scientific collection of North American trees in 1731 to the convening of the World Botanic Congress hosted by The North Carolina Arboretum and the American Association of Botanical Gardens and Arboreta in 2000. I intend to focus, as an organizational spine, on a representative cohort of consciously designed, historically significant, scientifically influential, regionally diverse, arboreal sites specifically identified either as: (1) arboretums so named at their beginning (e.g., The Dawes Arboretum in Ohio; The Morton Arboretum in Illinois), or (2) arboretums that have developed within the institutional contexts of botanical gardens (e.g., Missouri Botanical Garden's Shaw Arboretum; the New York Botanical Garden's Cary Arboretum); or (3) private estates, landscapes, and public gardens with important scientific arboreal collections (e.g., in California; Walter Hunnewell Arboretum, Wellesley, Massachusetts; Royal Botanical Gardens, Ontario; Canada). The study's geographical focus is primarily North America, north of Mexico and the Rio Grande, and presently involving those institutions listed as Research Cohort. I also recognize, that given the enormous influence of European arboreta (e.g., Britain's Royal Botanical Gardens, Kew; Derby Arboretum in Derbyshire) on North American institutions, and the importance of North American plant exploration in South America, Japan and China, there are inescapable international dimensions to my study. What are the relationships between Nature and Culture? To
explore such a question in the historical development of North American
arboreta, one must research its three interconnected, interdisciplinary
dimensions: (1) as a history of science, the study must examine topics
(for example, Asa Gray's landmark research--stimulated by Darwin's
evolutionary theory--that established a floristic relationship between
eastern North America and eastern Asia) in the fields of botany, dendrology,
and forestry; (2) as a history of landscape architecture, the research
must explore the numerous interconnections between arboreta and architects
(e.g., Frederick Law Olmsted's master plans for the Arnold and Biltmore
arboreta; Henry Teuscher's designs for the Montreal Botanical Garden in
Quebec; Ossian Cole Simmon's plans for the Morton and Nichols arboreta;
William Phillips' landscape design for the Fairchild Tropical Garden in
Florida); and between arboreta and the development of North American urban
parks (e.g. Rochester's Highland Botanical Park system in New York is an
arboretum); finally, and perhaps most importantly, (3) as a cultural
history, the project must study arboreta in the comparative framework
of other 19th and 20th-century civic, educational and urban institutions
having cultural collections for public display and use--art museums (e.g.,
the Paine Arboretum in Oshkosh, Wisconsin contains an art center); municipal
libraries, natural history museums (e.g., The Holden Arboretum in Ohio grew out
of Cleveland’s Museum of Natural History); plus zoos and aquariums. It must
also interpret the new cultural functions some North American arboreta now
perform as landscapes for sculpture gardens, wildlife preservers, ecological
centers, rainforest replications, landscape restorations, and historic
preservation sites. "These trees shall be my
books"
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