1955 The “Plant Doctor” Cited by American Horticultural Society
Plant pathologist Dr. Cynthia Westcott, known as the “plant doctor” after the title of one of her many popular gardening manuals, is honored by the American Horticultural Society.
Women's History in the Garden
2006 Women at South Central Farm
Urban gardens make news as farmers protest a forced eviction at South Central Farm in Los Angeles, considered one of the largest urban farms in the U.S. Forty protestors are arrested amid a property dispute. Though the farm has no official spokesperson, several women farmers including Rufina Juarez, Josefina Medina, and Maria Cavero rise to […]
2009 The White House Kitchen Garden
First Lady Michelle Obama plants a kitchen garden on the South Lawn of the White House, the first vegetable plot on the property since Eleanor Roosevelt’s Victory Garden. Obama uses the garden to start conversations around healthy eating.
1977 Gladys Tantaquidgeon and Plant Medicine
Gladys Tantaquidgeon, anthropologist and medicine woman of the Mohegan tribe, publishes Folk Medicine of the Delaware and Related Algonkian Tribes, her third study of Native American plant medicines.
1969 Freedom Farm Collective
Civil rights activist and former sharecropper Fannie Lou Hamer founds the Freedom Farm Cooperative as a means for African-American farmers to share resources, including field crops and vegetables.
1917 Buffalo Bird Woman’s Garden
Waheenee, also known as Buffalo Bird Woman, records traditional gardening techniques used among women of the Hidatsa people of the Great Plains in a series of interviews.
1891 Early Women’s Garden Clubs
A group of women from Georgia organizes the Ladies Garden Club of Athens, recognized as the first women’s gardening society of its kind in America.
1880s-1920s “Municipal Housekeepers” Promote Parks
As traditional caretakers of home and garden, women’s clubs lead campaigns to build more parks and gardens in cities, hoping to promote beauty and public health. Women also lead the movement to protect native plants from overcollection.
1870 Botanist Ynes Mexia Born
At a time when female scientists are few, Mexican-American botanist Ynes Mexia goes on to travel throughout North and South America, collecting and categorizing hundreds of plant specimens new to Western science.
1988 WE ACT for Environmental Justice
Peggy M. Shepard co-founds West Harlem Environmental Action (WE ACT), a grassroots organization dedicated to environmental health policy. Among other causes, the organization encourages urban gardening and fights for access to greenspace in communities of color.
1970 Women Living on the Earth
Alicia Bay Laurel’s manual Living on the Earth serves as a guide for young people looking to live off the land on the Wheeler Ranch Commune in Sonoma, California. The book sells more than 350,000 copies. The same year, Jane Shuttleworth co-founds the magazine Mother Earth News, another publication that helped shape the back-to-the-land movement […]
1965 “Lady Bird’s Bill”
President Johnson signs the Highway Beautification Act. Lady Bird Johnson had strongly advocated for the bill, which called for the removal of billboards, roadside junkyards, and certain outdoor advertising. It also encouraged scenic enhancements, like flower plantings along roadways.
1962 Silent Spring
Rachel Carson’s book Silent Spring is influential in changing American attitudes toward pesticides and herbicides, which were in wide use after World War II to achieve mosquito-free backyards and velvety green lawns.
1943 Eleanor Roosevelt’s Victory Garden
Eleanor Roosevelt plants a Victory Garden on the White House lawn, helping to popularize Americans’ patriotic duty to grow their own food during the Second World War so that larger farms can send more produce to troops overseas.
1943-1945 USDA recognizes Women’s Land Army
The USDA announces the formal establishment of the Women’s Land Army under a new agency, the United States Crop Corps. Women played a crucial role in cultivating and harvesting the nation’s crops during World War II while millions of men served away from home in the armed forces. The organization also opened opportunities for many […]