The 1890s through the 1930s saw a period of growth for private gardens in America. Newly-wealthy industrial titans were building grand country homes and looking to add gardens and grounds to match. Despite societal opposition to the idea of women working outside the home, many women achieved professional success in the field of landscape architecture.

By 1901 enough women were interested in the work of designing outdoor spaces that the first of several female-only landscape design schools in America, the Lowthorpe School of Landscape Architecture for Women, had cropped up.

In this Learning Lab you'll watch a short video introduction to women's participation in Progressive Era landscape architecture, then browse images of gardens designed by female landscape architects and landscape architecture teams including Beatrix Farrand, Lois Poinier, Ellen Shipman, Martha Brookes Hutcheson, Nellie B. Allen, Helen Page Wodell, Marian Cruger Coffin, Florence Yoch, Annette Hoyt Flanders, Alice Recknagel Ireys, and Nelva M. Weber.

keywords: garden, design, women, history, 20th century, Progressive Era, landscape architecture, built environment, work, career, Country Place Era, designers, plants, education, sexism, gender, nature, outdoor, 1900s, 1910s, 1920s

#HorticultureHERstory is a project to create digital stories that amplify the contributions of American women to the history of landscape, garden design, and horticulture using Smithsonian Gardens and Smithsonian Institution collections. This project received support from the Smithsonian American Women's History Initiative. #BecauseOfHerStory