Take a closer look at the lives of America’s founding fathers to learn how their attitudes toward plants, gardens, nature and agriculture shaped the forming of our nation. Author Andrea Wulf presents “Founding Gardeners: The Revolutionary Generation, Nature and the Shaping of the American Nation” at the Missouri Botanical Garden’s Shoenberg Theater on Thursday, June 2 at 6 p.m. The illustrated talk and book signing are presented by the Garden Club of St. Louis, the Ladue Garden Club and the Missouri Botanical Garden. The event is free and open to the public.
For George Washington, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson and James Madison, gardening, agriculture and botany were deeply ingrained, fundamental passions. In a unique retelling of the creation of America, historian Wulf recounts how plants, politics and personalities intertwined in the revolutionary generation.
Even as British ships prepared to attack in 1776, George Washington wrote to his estate manager to inquire after his garden at Mount Vernon. A trip to botanist John Bartram’s Philadelphia garden helped the delegates of the Constitutional Congress break their deadlock. A tour through English gardens inspired Thomas Jefferson and John Adams, and James Madison can be considered the “forgotten father” of American environmentalism. Taken together, these and other stories reveal a guiding yet previously overlooked ideology of the American Revolution.
Author Andrea Wulf was trained as a design historian at the Royal College of Art in London. She is the author of three books, including “The Founding Gardeners: How the Revolutionary Generation Created an American Eden,” and “The Brother Gardeners: Botany, Empire and the Birth of an Obsession,” winner of the American Horticultural Society 2010 Book Award. She has written for The Sunday Times, Wall Street Journal and The Financial Times, and regularly reviews for several newspapers, including the Times Literary Supplement, Guardian and New York Times.
Wulf was born in India, moved to Germany as a child and currently resides in London.
“Founding Gardeners: The Revolutionary Generation, Nature and the Shaping of the American Nation” will be held on Thursday, June 2 in the Shoenberg Theater of the Missouri Botanical Garden. The lecture begins at 6 p.m.; a book signing will immediately follow. The event is free to attend and presented by the Garden Club of St. Louis, the Ladue Garden Club and the Missouri Botanical Garden.
The Missouri Botanical Garden is located at 4344 Shaw Blvd. in south St. Louis, accessible from Interstate 44 at the Vandeventer exit and from Interstate 64 at the Kingshighway North & South exit. Free parking is available on-site and two blocks west at the corner of Shaw and Vandeventer.
For general Garden information, visit www.mobot.org or call (314) 577-5100.
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