Restoring America’s Most Significant Gardens

On September 16, 2020, delivered the banner lecture, “Restoring America’s Most Significant Gardens” The story of the Garden Club of Virginia is colorful, courageous, and impressive. It is not a coincidence that 2020 marks the 100th anniversary of the women’s suffrage movement, heralding a new age of female participation in American civic life. Concern for the environment and efforts to preserve and restore Virginia’s significant public gardens were founding principles of the female-led organization and are more relevant today than ever before. In this Banner Lecture on September 16, 2020, Matt Peterschmidt, Director of Landscapes and Security at Stratford Hall, Dr. Eric Proebsting, Director of Archaeology at Poplar Forest, and Betsy Worthington, member of the Restoration Committee of the Garden Club of Virginia, discuss the legacy of the Garden Club of Virginia in the context of two current projects at Stratford Hall and Poplar Forest, and their unexpected connection to each other. The content and opinions expressed in these presentations are solely those of the speaker and not necessarily of the Virginia Museum of History & Culture.