Glass House, 1971, Molly Adams, photographer, Maida Babson Adams Collection |
AAG’s Maida Babson Adams American Garden Collection includes
thousands of images taken by freelance garden photographer Molly Adams who
documented hundreds of gardens in the mid-Atlantic region during the 1960s and
1970s. Adams’ image collection was
donated to AAG by her family in 2003.
Little information was included with the images beyond perhaps the
client name and sometimes the city or town scrawled on the back of photographs
or on yellowed glassine envelopes housing batches of photographic negatives. Another challenge was the fact that strips of
film negatives and contact sheets often contained more than one garden, though
no indication was given where one job ended and the other began.
Glassine sleeve with reference to 'greenhouse tour.' |
While processing the collection, I came across a batch of
negatives in a sleeve labeled “Greenhouse tour/Westchester/Feb[ruary]
[19]71.” As luck would have it, this was
one of the very few projects in the Adams Collection accompanied by a ‘Rosetta
Stone,’ in this case an itinerary for a “One Day Pilgrimage Greenhouse Study
Tour” sponsored by the Horticultural Society of New York.While reviewing the images with the hopes of
matching them up to site descriptions on the schedule, one in particular caught
my eye because of the massive window walls it featured. A few terms clicked into my computer’s search
engine…and you guessed it, the image (and a few of its associates) show none
other than The Glass House in New
Canaan, Connecticut designed by Philip Johnson. Not in Westchester County and not on the
schedule!
Glass House, 1971, Molly Adams, photographer, Maida Babson Adams Collection |
Glass House, 1971 Molly Adams, photographer, Maida Babson Adams Collection |
A terrific find for AAG, but one that underscores how much
archivists rely on accurate metadata (or data about data) to be able to
identify what’s in their collections so that they in turn can generate finding
aids and catalog records that help researchers locate the resources they need. It’s a bit overwhelming to think of all the
treasures that may be hidden in an archives. Then again, even the most accurately
identified and thoroughly described item in an archives is a hidden treasure at
one point or another, just biding its time for the moment when a researcher
uses it to solve a mystery, prove a point or tell a forgotten story.
Joyce Connolly
Museum Specialist
Archives of American Gardens
Smithsonian Gardens
Blogs across the Smithsonian will give an inside look at the Institution’s archival collections and practices during a month long blogathon in celebration of October’s American Archives Month. See additional posts from our other participating blogs, as well as related events and resources, on the Smithsonian’s Archives Month website.
Blogs across the Smithsonian will give an inside look at the Institution’s archival collections and practices during a month long blogathon in celebration of October’s American Archives Month. See additional posts from our other participating blogs, as well as related events and resources, on the Smithsonian’s Archives Month website.
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