Chapter 1
An Introduction to The New York Botanical Garden, 1888-1929 ..... 1
Botanical Gardens in Western Context ........................ 2
A British Model: Creating a Botanical Empire ................ 3
The Garden as a Professional Institution .................... 8
Chapter 2
Early Botanical and Horticultural Efforts in New York .......... 11
New York's First Botanical Garden .......................... 13
The New-York Horticultural Society ......................... 17
Seeking Trans-Atlantic Legitimacy: British Precedents ...... 20
Celebrating Horticulture ................................... 23
Seeking Hosack's Lost Eden ................................. 24
Northeastern Horticulture at Mid-Century ................... 29
Alternative Horticultural and Agricultural Venues at
Mid-Century:
The American Institute of the City of New York ........... 31
The Torrey Botanical Club .................................. 36
Torrey Club Women and Middle-Class Botany:
Making a Public Case for a Garden .......................... 40
Britton's Nineteenth-Century Botanical and Horticultural
Precedents ............................................... 45
Chapter 3
Creating New York's Second Botanical Carden .................... 49
Nathaniel Lord Britton (1859-1934) ......................... 53
Elizabeth Gertrude Knight Britton (1858-1934) .............. 57
Choosing a Setting for a New Urban Oasis ................... 59
Establishing an Institutional Framework .................... 63
Looking to Central Park .................................... 65
Columbia College: An Institutional Model ................... 67
Institutional Rivalries:
City Colleges Contend for Access to Garden Science ....... 70
Meeting Economic Challenges in the Mid-1890s ............... 75
Designing the Garden ....................................... 79
The Garden Design Controversy .............................. 85
Charles Sprague Sargent and a New York-Boston Rivalry ...... 87
The Political Context of the Design Controversy ............ 92
The Power of Harvard Botany ................................ 95
Navigating City Politics ................................... 99
Chapter 4
An Educational Carden in a Public Place ....................... 101
Creating the Garden Landscape: Setting Priorities ......... 102
Britton's Contemporary Precedents: Natural History and
a "New" Botany .......................................... 109
The Museum Collections .................................... 115
Public Education .......................................... 122
Professional Education .................................... 125
The Aesthetic Element ..................................... 134
The Garden Plantations .................................... 135
The Conservatory: A Garden under Glass .................... 137
The Garden's Publishing Mission: Scholarly and Popular
Imprints ................................................ 143
The Public Makes a Space for Itself ....................... 144
A Cultivated Public: The Revived Horticultural Society .... 150
Assessing Britton's Vision ................................ 151
Chapter 5
A Botanical Monroe Doctrine ................................... 155
A British Model ........................................... 156
The Press Celebrates New York's Botanical Nationalists .... 160
Britton's Role in a Nomenclatural Controversy ............. 162
A Case Study: Botanical Collaborators and an American
Monograph ............................................... 176
The New Politics of Funding: The Carnegie Institute of
Washington .............................................. 183
Starting the Cactus Project ............................... 189
The Long Gestation of The Cactaceae ....................... 198
The Significance of The Cactaceae ......................... 204
New World Plants for an American Audience ................. 205
Chapter 6
Metropolitan Botany in a Tropical Colony ...................... 209
Taking Stock at an Anniversary ............................ 210
Planning the Puerto Rico Survey ........................... 213
Forging Tropical Ties ..................................... 216
Botanical Adventures and a Gentle Imperialism ............. 218
Metropolitans and Others in Puerto Rico: The Historical
Context ................................................. 221
Puerto Rico Welcomes "Millionaire Botanist" Nathaniel
Britton ................................................. 224
The Brittons in the Field and among an Insular Elite ...... 228
Economic Aims of the Puerto Rico Survey ................... 234
Britton and Puerto Rican Development: Forestry ............ 238
Britton and Puerto Rican Development: Mining .............. 245
The Scientific Survey of "Porto Rico" in Retrospect ....... 248
Chapter 7
The New York Botanical Garden in the 1920s: Negotiating
Priorities ................................................ 253
Economic and Scientific Concerns .......................... 254
Frederic Schiller Lee and the Garden ...................... 258
Taxonomic Botany and the Development of Biology ........... 266
Reforming an Ornamental Landscape: A Bronx Model .......... 274
Turning to Landscape Authorities .......................... 276
Finding Funds ............................................. 282
A Potential Institutional Rival ........................... 289
Ambitious Fundraising Goals Fall Short .................... 293
Lee's NYBG Career Ends with Britton Victorious ............ 296
Epilogue
The New York Botanical Garden 1929-2002 ....................... 301
The Garden as an Institution .............................. 305
Index ......................................................... 309
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