By Janet Evans, Associate Director, PHS McLean Library 

To celebrate Women’s History Month, let’s shine a light on 19th and 20th-century women who played critical roles in the history of horticulture in and around Philadelphia. McLean library staff are working on an exciting project funded by the Gladys Krieble Delmas Foundation to do just that – we are uncovering identities of gardeners and horticulturists often only briefly and cryptically mentioned in our archives as “Mrs. John Jones” and creating records for them that are added to the Library of Congress’s authority records.  

Here are eight women horticulturists who shaped the history of gardening in Pennsylvania. These women not only advanced the art of horticulture and gardening but also paved the way for future generations to continue their work. 

Anna O’Keefe Elliott: Elected to PHS’s Executive Council

While researching women for this project, PHS archivist Penny Baker made surprising discoveries, such as Mrs. William Townsend Elliott (1864-1939), who lived and gardened in Ardmore and was one of the first women elected to PHS’s Executive Council in 1916. She wasn’t always a staid Main Line matron; in her earlier life, Mrs. Elliott was Anna O’Keefe, a well-known comic opera singer who performed on New York stages and toured major cities in Europe.  

Elizabeth Mary Stigale: Philadelphia's First Female Florist

Enterprising and innovative Elizabeth Mary Stigale (1821-1904) was, according to her obituary, the first woman to own and operate a florist’s shop in Philadelphia. She was also an inventor who obtained several US patents, including a method for preserving flowers and a rail for an ornamental fence.  

Mary Helen Wingate Lloyd: Early Member of the Garden Club of America

Mary Helen Wingate Lloyd (1868-1934) was a talented, knowledgeable gardener whose club, The Gardeners, was a founding club of the Garden Club of America, established in Philadelphia in 1913. For many years, she dispensed her horticultural expertise through contributions to the Garden Club of America’s Bulletin. In addition to being a gifted artist and an early advocate of women’s suffrage, she was an avid book collector and built an impressive collection of European and American garden books that now reside in the special collections of the PHS McLean Library.  

Ida W. Pritchett: Researcher and Photographer

Ida W. Pritchett (1891-1965) earned a bachelor’s degree from Bryn Mawr in 1914 and a Doctor of Science in hygiene from Johns Hopkins University in 1922. In 1917, at the Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research, she worked with Dr. Carroll G. Bull to develop an anti-toxin for gas gangrene, which was a life-threatening condition for soldiers wounded in World War I. By the late 1920s, Pritchett left science and turned her attention to professional photography; she exhibited her work in international exhibitions and her garden photography appeared in prominent publications of the day. The Pritchett collection in the archives formed the basis of the informative virtual exhibit curated by Penny Baker, Two Women, One Garden: Selections from the Castaña Portfolio. 

Anne Wertsner Wood: PHS Horticultural Educator and Photographer

Anne Wertsner Wood (1907-2004) was a 1927 graduate of the Pennsylvania School of Horticulture for Women, now Temple Ambler. She joined PHS in 1937 as a horticultural educator at a time when the staff consisted of 3 individuals. Over her nearly 30-year career, she gave hundreds of lectures and demonstrations, routinely visited members’ gardens to offer gardening advice, led tours, organized entries in the Flower Show, and produced PHS’s Victory Garden Harvest Shows during the war years (1942-45). She was a skilled photographer and the PHS archives include several hundred of her Kodachrome slides. 

Joanna McQuail Reed: Accomplished Plantswoman and Flower Show Exhibitor

Joanna McQuail Reed (1917-2002) came to Philadelphia to study art at the Philadelphia School of Industrial Art (now the recently closed University of the Arts). She married her husband George in 1940, and they moved to Longview Farm in Chester County where they raised five children. A chance meeting with neighbor and well-known art collector Albert C. Barnes led her to take classes at the Barnes Foundation’s newly established Arboretum School, an act that sparked a life-long passion for plants. She became an accomplished plantswoman with an artistic eye who created an extraordinary country garden at Longview Farm, where she welcomed hundreds of visitors from all over the world. Her association with the Flower Show began in the 1950s, when she and George exhibited miniature settings, but was most famously known for the lunches she made for Show judges for over 30 years. Her hospitality, generosity, and kindness were legendary, and she touched the lives of countless gardeners in Philadelphia and beyond. 

Mamie Melton Nichols: Community Leader in Point Breeze

In the 1980s, Mamie Melton Nichols (1917-2009) was key to PHS’s partnership with her Point Breeze Philadelphia neighborhood to develop 11 sitting parks, establish 13 community gardens, and plant 18 blocks with street trees, window boxes, and curbside planters. During her tenure at the Point Breeze Federation, she saw her neighborhood’s abandoned buildings decrease from 928 to 60. After Mamie raised her children, she obtained her bachelor’s and master's degrees in social work and counseling. She then spent years working tirelessly to improve the lives of Point Breeze residents.     

Blanche Epps: Award-winning Community Gardener

Born in South Carolina, Blanche Epps (1932-2012) moved north to attend New York’s Julliard School of Music then on to Philadelphia to marry John Epps and to raise three children. She taught choreography and arts in the Philadelphia Housing Authority and became a Master Gardener through Penn State’s program. She converted a trash-filled vacant lot into the Garden of Gethsemane, an award-winning community garden in West Philadelphia. There, she grew and preserved heritage vegetables and herbs that harkened back to her childhood and introduced Southern foodways to her grandchildren and her neighbors by preserving time-honored recipes and traditions for the younger generation.   

These remarkable women paved the way for generations of women in horticulture. To learn more about the history of gardening in Philadelphia, visit the McLean Library!