Bartram's Garden: a reception history

摘要

Tucked between an industrial stretch of the lower Schuylkill River and a housing project in Southwest Philadelphia, Bartram's Garden has been engaged in a battle against obscurity and neglect for more than one hundred years. Once an internationally celebrated scientific and commercial landscape and today a National Historical Landmark, the garden is often overlooked by visitors to Philadelphia, a forgotten, but highly significant, aspect of Philadelphia's rich heritage. Established by John Bartram in1731, the garden gained international renown during Bartram's lifetime for its founder's contributions to the nascent science of botany through the discovery and dissemination of North American plants. Following Bartram's death, the garden continued tobe recognised for its international nursery business, which flourished under the care of Bartram's descendants through the 1830s. Today, however, a current brochure describes the garden as 'Before Lewis and Clark', 'Before Audubon' and 'Before Burpee' (figure 1), suggesting that this important site has come to be defined as much by what it is not as by its own rich scientific and commercial history. How has the identity of Bartram's Garden been diluted?