Andrew Jackson Downing. Engraving on paper, c. 1852, by John Halpin. National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution; gift of T. Bragg McLeod.
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Downing, Andrew Jackson (1815-1852)
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Downing, Andrew Jackson (1815-1852), nurseryman and landscape gardener
David Schuyler
Downing, Andrew Jackson (31 October 1815–28 July 1852), nurseryman and landscape gardener, was born in Newburgh, New York, the son of Samuel Downing, a wheelwright turned nurseryman, and Eunice Bridge. His youthful experiences in the Hudson Valley inspired his later interest in landscape and architectural design. As Newburgh grew from village into small industrial city, and as farmers increasingly raised fruits and vegetables for urban markets, Downing’s career evolved from that of selling garden stock to the landscaping of grounds and the design of rural and suburban homes. And as the pace of urban growth accelerated, he became the most influential early advocate of spacious parks within cities and codified the suburban ideal for middle- and upper-class Americans....
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du Pont, Henry Francis (1880-1969), art collector and horticulturist
Natalie Zacek
du Pont, Henry Francis (27 May 1880–11 April 1969), art collector and horticulturist, was born in Winterthur, Delaware, the son of Henry Algernon du Pont, an army officer and U.S. senator, and Mary Pauline Foster. After taking an A.B. at Harvard College in 1903, the young du Pont spent a number of years traveling throughout the United States and Europe, the du Ponts’ financial success having released him from career obligations. In 1914, however, his father asked that he take over the day-to-day management of the dairy farming operation at “Winterthur Farms,” the family farm in rural Delaware. Under du Pont’s meticulous direction the farm developed a nationally famous and prize-winning herd of Holstein-Friesian cattle, specimens of which were consistently voted among the best of breed in the country, serving as the foundation for many other registered Holstein herds throughout the United States. The spectacular success of the cattle herd, in combination with du Pont’s unusual willingness to experiment with innovative new practices in soil conservation and crop production, allowed Winterthur Farms to develop a reputation as the model of a modern American dairy farm....
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James, Will Roderick (1892-1942), western author and artist
Robert L. Gale
James, Will Roderick (06 June 1892–03 September 1942), western author and artist, was born Joseph Ernest Nephtali Dufault in St. Nazaire de Acton, Quebec, Canada, the son of Jean Dufault and Josephine (maiden name unknown). When the Dufault family moved to Montreal, he attended a Catholic school and his father ran a hotel, in which the boy heard stories of trappers that he later used to fabricate parts of his ...
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López, José Dolores (1868-1937), farmer, carpenter, and woodcarver
Lonn Taylor
López, José Dolores (01 April 1868–17 May 1937), farmer, carpenter, and woodcarver, was born in Córdova, Rio Arriba County, New Mexico, the son of Nasario Guadalupe López and María Teresa Bustos. Nasario López was a carpenter, and his son learned that trade as a child. As a young man he worked as a shepherd, but in 1893 he married Candelaria Trujillo and moved to a farm in Llano de Quemadeños, east of Córdova. They had seven children. Candelaria died in 1912, and in 1913 López moved back to Córdova and married Demetra Romero. That marriage was childless....
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Russell, Charles Marion (1864-1926)
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Charles M. Russell. Photographic print, late nineteenth or early twentieth century. Courtesy of the Library of Congress (LC-USZ62-114799).
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Russell, Charles Marion (1864-1926), artist and author
Robert L. Gale
Russell, Charles Marion (19 March 1864–24 October 1926), artist and author, was born in St. Louis, Missouri, the son of Charles Silas Russell, a wealthy businessman, and Mary Elizabeth Mead. As a child, Russell always preferred modeling in clay, drawing, and playing hooky. In 1879 his parents sent him to a military academy in New Jersey, but after a year they relented and allowed him to realize his dream of becoming a cowboy. He moved to the Judith Basin in Montana, where he tended sheep (1880), did chores for a hunter and trapper (1881–1882), and sketched western activities and scenery in his spare time. After a visit back in St. Louis for a month in 1882, he returned to the Great Northwest as a horse wrangler and cow puncher for several Montana cattlemen (1882–1893), but he continued to sketch and paint as much as he could....
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Waugh, Frank Albert (1869-1943), horticulturist and landscape architect
Robert E. Grese
Waugh, Frank Albert (08 July 1869–20 March 1943), horticulturist and landscape architect, was born in Sheboygan Falls, Wisconsin, the son of Albert Freeman Waugh, a Civil War veteran and farmer, and Magdalena Biehler, a native of Alsace of German parentage. When Frank was two and a half years of age, the Waugh family moved to a 640-acre farm in McPherson County, Kansas. He studied horticulture and botany at Kansas State Agricultural College in Manhattan, earning an S.B. in 1891 and an M.S. in 1893. While in school, he worked variously as a country school teacher, a teamster and general maintenance person in the horticultural department, and a reporter and editor for newspapers and periodicals in Topeka, Kansas; Helena, Montana; and Denver, Colorado. Later he pursued additional graduate work at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, took special classes under Willy Lange at the Gaertnerlehranstalt zu Dahlen in Germany, and studied etching at the École des Beaux-Arts in Fontainebleau, France....
