Photographs published in Joseph C. Farber's books are still under copyright. Reproduction permission from the Joseph C. Farber's estate is required. Other intellectual property rights may apply. Archives Center cost-recovery and use fees may apply when requesting reproductions.
Collection Citation:
Joseph Farber Papers and Photographs, Archives Center, National Museum of American History. Gift of Dr. Joan C. Farber.
Photographs of sites in Springfield and New Salem, Illinois, associated with Abraham Lincoln, such as the Lincoln Home National Historic Site and the Old State Capitol.
Collection Restrictions:
Collection is open for research.
Collection Rights:
Photographs published in Joseph C. Farber's books are still under copyright. Reproduction permission from the Joseph C. Farber's estate is required. Other intellectual property rights may apply. Archives Center cost-recovery and use fees may apply when requesting reproductions.
Collection Citation:
Joseph Farber Papers and Photographs, Archives Center, National Museum of American History. Gift of Dr. Joan C. Farber.
The Hollerith Family Collection includes approximately 2,200 35mm slides dating from 1952 to 1980 that document the horticultural interests and travels of sisters Virginia and Nan Hollerith, members of the Georgetown Garden Club in Washington, D.C. The images primarily show private and public gardens, plantations, and historic sites in the mid-Atlantic and the southeast regions of the United States. Included in the collection are slides documenting the activities of the Georgetown Garden Club and various floral arrangements.
Arrangement Note:
The Holleriths used a self-designed numbering system to organize their 35mm slides. They captioned most slides with the name of the garden or site shown in the slide.
Biographical/Historical note:
Lucia, Nannie (Nan) and Virginia Hollerith were the daughters of inventor Herman Hollerith and his wife Lucia Beverly Talcott Hollerith. Other Hollerith children include Herman Hollerith, Jr. (1892-1982), Charles Hollerith (1893-1972), and Richard Hollerith (1900-1967).
Herman Hollerith's invention of the punch card tabulating machine, which played an integral role in the creation of the modern information processing industry, was implemented in the 1890 census to summarize census data. His business, the Tabulating Machine Company, would ultimately become International Business Machines (IBM). Upon selling his business in 1911, Herman Hollerith purchased a Georgetown residence known as Mackall Square, and added to the property a second home, which was known as the Hollerith House. The three Hollerith sisters spent the bulk of their lives in residence at this Georgetown home and at the family's Mathews County, Virginia property, known as Brighton, or Mobjack Farm.
Lucia Beverly Hollerith, the eldest of the six Hollerith children, was born in 1891. A visual artist, she studied at the Corcoran School of Art and taught floral arrangement at the National Cathedral School for Girls. Born in 1898, Nannie Talcott Hollerith, commonly addressed as Nan, appears to have been particularly engaged in the maintenance of the Hollerith family estate. Virginia Hollerith was born in 1902. The youngest of the Hollerith children, she published a biographical piece about her father in the Spring 1971 issue of Isis by the History of Science Society.
Mrs. Lucia Hollerith, mother of the Hollerith children, co-founded the Georgetown Garden Club in 1924. The three sisters were active members throughout their lives, as well as active members of Christ Church in Georgetown, where they regularly contributed floral arrangements for the altar. These and other floral arrangements are documented in the collection, as are the Hollerith sisters' activities with the Georgetown Garden Club.
Related Archival Materials note:
Related materials may be found in the Hollerith Family Papers at the Washington D.C. Historical Society's Kiplinger Research Library and Collections, the Papers of the Hollerith Family at the Virginia Historical Society in Richmond, the Barnard-Talcott Hollerith Family Papers in the Special Collections Research Center at The George Washington University, and the Papers of Herman Hollerith in the Manuscript Division of the Library of Congress.
Restrictions:
Access to original images by appointment only. Researcher must submit request for appointment in writing. Certain items may be restricted and not available to researchers. Please direct reference inquiries to the Archives of American Gardens: aag@si.edu.
Rights:
Archives of American Gardens encourages the use of its archival materials for non-commercial, educational and personal use under the fair use provision of U.S. copyright law. Use or copyright restrictions may exist. It is incumbent upon the researcher to ascertain copyright status and assume responsibility for usage. All requests for duplication and use must be submitted in writing and approved by Archives of American Gardens.
Topic:
Gardening -- United States -- societies, etc Search this
United States of America -- New York -- Suffolk County -- Huntington
Scope and Contents note:
The folder includes worksheets and photocopies of articles.
General note:
Oheka was the grandest estate of its time in Cold Spring Harbor on Long Island's North Shore, styled after French farmhouses but with 126 rooms. The house was designed by architects William Adams Delano and Chester Holmes Aldrich in circa 1921. In 1917 the Olmsted Brothers planned the grounds of the 443-acre estate, which included the entrance drive bordered by red cedars, the golf course, and extensive bridle paths. It took two years to move the earth and build up a rise on which the house was sited. A distinctive parterre in front of the house was comprised of eight reflecting pools to show the changing sky and surrounding mountains, with grass borders. In 1919 Adele Wolff Kahn commissioned Beatrix Farrand to design more intimate spaces, including a Dutch garden, an octagonal garden, a rose garden and a water garden. The formal Dutch garden enclosed by vine-covered brick walls displayed tulips and flowering trees in the spring, in parterre beds separated by brick walks laid out in a herringbone pattern. The octagonal fragrance garden featured yellow and purple pansies followed in summer by lavender, nepeta and pink carnations. Farrand's designs were formal and highly detailed to the extent that each week's blooms could be anticipated.
Garden features included greenhouses, an orangery, a croquet lawn, stables, pools and tennis courts. Courtyards at the house featured single mature trees supplied by the Long Island nursery, Lewis & Valentine. The estate was too costly to maintain and the gardens were destroyed in 1948. A partial restoration and conversion to a hotel in the 1980s reinstalled the Olmsted Brothers landscape designs but not Farrand's.
Persons associated with the garden include Otto H. Kahn and Adele Wolff Kahn (former owners, 1914-circa 1934); Eastern military Academy (former owner), Gary Melius (former owner), Olmsted Brothers (landscape architects, circa 1917); Beatrix Farrand (landscape designer, 1919-1928); Lewis & Valentine (nurserymen, circa 1928); William Adams Delano & Chester Holmes Aldrich (architects).
Related Archival Materials note:
Other archival materials related to Oheka are located at the Environmental Design Archives at the University of California at Berkeley, Huntington Historical Society in Huntington, New York, the Nassau County Reference Library
See others in:
Garden Club of America Collection, ca. 1920-[ongoing].
Related Materials:
Records related to this site can be found at the Frederick Law Olmsted National Historic Site, Olmsted Job Number 06499, Otto H. Kahn.
Collection Restrictions:
Access to original images by appointment only. Researcher must submit request for appointment in writing. Certain items may be restricted and not available to researchers. Please direct reference inquiries to the Archives of American Gardens: aag@si.edu.
Collection Rights:
For information or study purposes only. Use or copyright restrictions may exist. All requests for duplication and use must be submitted in writing and approved by Archives of American Gardens.
