1910s - 1930s
Gardening & Horticultural
Training Program
10
During an era of social reform, Eleanor Bodine created an inspiring gardening and horticultural training program for young women right here. Evidence shows that during World War I into the 1920s, it was Eleanor Bodine who recruited women aspiring to careers in gardening and horticulture to hone their craft in this garden and in the sprawling flower, fruit and vegetable gardens surrounding the greenhouse complex.
The food these women grew had an impact within the community. Through a 1926 article about Stoneleigh in The Gardener’s Chronicle, we learn that the massive vegetable garden shown in this Olmsted blueprint had been a Victory garden, “from which the poor people in the neighborhood received their supply of fresh vegetables.”
100 years ago, Stoneleigh’s grounds were busy working landscapes reflecting social movements of the time. For example, in May 1919, Eleanor Bodine welcomed to her gardens fellow members of the newly founded Woman’s National Farm and Garden Association, which was holding its annual conference nearby at Bryn Mawr College.
In 1920, the same year that women finally gained the right to vote in the U.S, she recruited college-educated women for Stoneleigh’s horticultural training program through the Women’s Educational and Industrial Union headquartered in Boston.
The following year, she hosted a summer garden tour organized by the Pennsylvania School of Horticulture for Women at Ambler, the first school of its kind in the U.S. (now Temple University Ambler).
In 1921, an article in House & Garden titled “Consider the Gardener” again shone a public spotlight on this program for training of young women, “offered by Mrs. Samuel T. Bodine of Villa Nova, Pa whose extensive estate and eminent superintendent-gardener, Mr. Alexander MacLeod, have formed an exceptional combination.”
The article focused on the need to foster the interest of more young people in gardening and horticulture, with these lines that resonate over one hundred years later:
nature study classes and school gardens are awakening special powers of observation and emphasizing the practical value of patience and diligent perseverance.... public and private enterprise must combine to throw searchlights on the path to be chosen, revealing the mysteries of science related to horticulture [because] even soil... teems with history, science, poetry and religion.
Eleanor Bodine would have welcomed attendees to view Stoneleigh’s magnificent gardens at the front of the property but given the interests of the membership, the back of the property likely would have been center stage. For this is where Mrs. Bodine and her superintendent Alexander MacLeod hosted an innovative gardening and horticultural training program for women, centered on a greenhouse complex designed by noted architect Frank Miles Day and unique "Costwold cottage" style Superintendent’s Cottage.
Friday May 23, 1919 was a busy day for Stoneleigh’s Eleanor Gray Warden Bodine. Bryn Mawr College hosted the 5th Annual Conference of the Woman’s National Farm and Garden Association. As an association member, Mrs. Bodine listened to talks on topics ranging from War Gardens to Community Gardens to the Woman’s Land Army. After the program, the conference attendees toured 4 nearby farms and gardens, with Stoneleigh the last stop of the day.
We will now take a left, perpendicular to the fenced garden to a small brick cottage on the north property line.
Source:
For more about the Woman's National Farm & Garden Association, click here.
For more about the Pennsylvania School of Horticulture for Women, click here.
