Cultivating the American Wilderness: Macrobotanical Evidence from Bartram’s Garden

Summary

This is an abstract from the session entitled "New Avenues in the Study of Plant Remains from Historical Sites" , at the 2022 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology.

In 1761, John Bartram, a self-taught Philadelphia naturalist, attested that his garden could “challenge any in America for variety.” He primarily referred to Eastern North American flora identified during his plant-collection trips and brought under cultivation in his own garden. These species, including the famous Franklinia tree (Franklinia alatamaha), were a central feature of the garden. This paper will discuss the macrobotanical and archival evidence for North American plants in Bartram’s Garden using the analysis of desiccated material identified from the family’s nearby historic home. I investigate how, over three generations of American botanists, these North American plants were used to create a garden that was a radical departure from both botanical and wilderness gardens of the day.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• New Avenues in the Study of Plant Remains from Historical Sites   •
• Society for Historical Archaeology 2022

Keywords

Individual & Institutional Roles

Contact(s): Society for Historical Archaeology