Photographers Frances Benjamin Johnston (1864-1952) and Mattie Edwards Hewitt (1869-1956), separately and together as working partners, captured thousands of images of gardens and architecture around the country during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Johnston and Hewitt were working partners for eight years, after which both continued photographing gardens and architecture on their own. 

At a time when women with professions outside the home were rare, Johnston and Hewitt represent two successful female artists who used their skills to commercial and critical success. Johnston, who would later become known for her groundbreaking photojournalism, spent several years lecturing on garden-related subjects. Both women's images were made into glass lantern slides that circulated among garden clubs and horticulture enthusiasts.

Their work documents a "golden age" in American private gardens, including rare work by women landscape architects. 

Johnston and Hewitt's work in the Archives of American Gardens can also be seen as a study in early twentieth-century photography and its preservation. In addition to black and white photographs, you'll notice images that have been hand-tinted by colorists, and even multiple colorings of the same image. 

keywords: garden, design, women, history, 20th century, Progressive Era, landscape architecture, built environment, work, career, Country Place Era, designers, plants, horticulture, education, sexism, gender, nature, outdoors, camera, 1960s, 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