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This ongoing collection consists of finding aids created for the archival holdings of the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society (1827- ). Included are guides to historical materials such more as the PHS minute books, administrative records, and PHS initiatives and programs for events including the Philadelphia Flower Show and Philadelphia Green. Finding aids also cover the extensive image file collections, glass slides, and ephemera connected with the activities of the Society. less

This collection consists of documentation related to the Philadelphia Flower Show from 1829 to the present including tickets, advertisements, posters and high-quality photographs to exhibits and more promotional events. Some of the images include buildings that no longer exist, such as Philadelphia's Commercial Museum and Civic Center. less

The Garden Club of Philadelphia was established in 1904 by Mrs. J. Willis Martin and Miss Ernestine Goodman to promote an interest in gardens, their design, more and management. The garden club held meetings, conducted horticultural research, attended lectures, and participated in civic endeavors. In 1913, several members of the Garden Club of Philadelphia joined with several women from other local gardening associations to form the larger Garden Club of America. This collection, comprised of more than 300 views on glass, most hand-tinted, focuses on individual private gardens in and around Philadelphia, eastern Pennsylvania, and New Jersey. The images provide unique documentation of gardens that are either “lost” or have been significantly altered during the last half of the 20th-century and include multiple views of the estate gardens of Andalusia, Stenton, Highlands, and Ludington among many others. This digital project is supported by a grant from the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission. less

The noted scholar, horticulturist, and landscape architect John Caspar Wister (1887-1982) focused on eastern Pennsylvanian climate and ecology through his work as first director of both more the Tyler Arboretum (Media, Pennsylvania) and the Scott Arboretum (Swarthmore College). This collection, comprised of more 400 views on glass, most hand-tinted, illustrated Wister's popular lectures, which he delivered to garden club members, college and university audiences, and horticultural societies in Philadelphia and throughout the United States from 1920s through the 1930s. The slides depict approximately 100 sites--primarily Philadelphia public and private gardens, parks and landscapes, and individual views of plant specimens. Geographically, the slides feature the American East and West, with Europe represented by Switzerland, Germany, France and England, and includes an unattributed subset devoted to China, Japan and Hawaii. This digital project is supported in part by a grant from the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission. less

This collection is comprised of photographic images documenting designed landscapes both private and public in and around Philadelphia. Digitized materials include early-twentieth century views of private, more public, and corporate gardens documented in the collection of the Society of Little Gardens of Philadelphia. In addition, the PHS Collection Portfolios document the activities the Rittenhouse Square Flower Market as well as materials connected to the School Gardens Movement in Philadelphia through the Perla A. Matthews photograph collection. Included are photographs taken by noted Canadian photographer Clara Sipprell (1885-1975) and Philadelphia photographer, Ida W. Pritchett of the Alba B. Johnson estate “Castana,” in Rosemont, Pennsylvania.  In addition, are the images of Edge Hill, the estate of Samuel W. Morris that depict the gardens designed by landscape architect Ellen Biddle Shipman (1869-1950) and photographed by "Mrs. Gillingham" [Mrs. C. Stratton Howe Gillingham] and Mattie Edwards Hewitt (1869-1956). This digital project is supported in part by a grant from the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission. less

This collection documents activities and projects undertaken by or in partnership with the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society from its inception in 1827 to the 21st Century (apart more from Philadelphia Flower Show documentation, which is in a separate collection). The bulk of the material is from originals dating from 1940 - 2010. Consisting of scanned documents and photographic images, born-digital images, and digitized video and audio clips, this collection documents Philadelphia-area horticultural activity including:  WWII Victory Garden Harvest Shows; PHS’s work from 1970s forward on urban greening projects created in concert with community leaders and activists; major projects on public landscape revitalization; and vacant land stabilization. This collection traces the trajectory of PHS’s urban greening initiatives starting in the 1970s as its Philadelphia Green program, which, over time, helped Philadelphians create hundreds of community gardens, plant thousands of trees to beautify and cool the city’s streets, to revitalize Philadelphia’s neighborhood parks and to bring new life to iconic public landscapes. Additionally, the collection includes digital images of Meadowbrook Farm a 25-acre property in Abington, Pennsylvania, bequeathed to PHS in 2003 and material related to PHS’s first Pop Up Garden in 2011.  The collection is supported in part through a 2020 NEH Cares Grant, National Endowment for the Humanities. less