Skip to main content

The 1915 Garden Club Program

Thu, 12/02/2021 - 09:25

Item of the Week From the East Hampton Library’s Long Island Collection

This week’s item features the Garden Club of East Hampton’s program from its first season, 1915. It lists the club’s officers and their planned events.

The club was founded on Aug. 25, 1914, by a group of local women with a passion for gardening and educating others on its benefits. By June of 1915, the club had accepted an invitation to become an official member of the Garden Club of America.

The back of the program identifies the officers in 1915 as Mary L. Kennedy Woodhouse, president, Elizabeth G. Lockwood, vice president, Harriet Hollister, secretary, and Margaret Potter, treasurer. The first meeting was held on June 8 at the Woodhouse residence, where Maurice Field gave a lecture on perennials.

Two weeks later, the group met to discuss roses at Blanche Benjamin McAlpin’s house. On July 13, the club met again to hear Lillian C. Alderson, a garden designer and lecturer recommended by the Garden Club of America, read her paper on “Color Schemes in the Herbaceous Border and Flowering Shrubs.” Prizes were given out for the best sweet peas.

One of the events listed in the program is the club’s first flower show, planned for July 23 but for unknown reasons moved to Aug. 13, when The East Hampton Star reported the cancellation of the club’s show at the East Hampton Library because of the damage recent storms had done to the flowers.

As a result, the Garden Club’s 1916 flower show at the East Hampton Village residence of the suffragist May Groot Manson is considered the club’s first such show.

In July of 2022, the library will once again host the club’s flower show.

Mayra Scanlon is a librarian and archivist in the East Hampton Library’s Long Island Collection.

Villages

‘Country’ Lawyer, Author, Painter, Man of the World

The pace at which Lenny Ackerman moves belies his 86 years. The prominent East End attorney writes a weekly column for The Mountain Messenger, has taken up painting, and has just published his fourth book.

Jul 31, 2025

Item of the Week: The A.O. Jones Hardware Store

This photograph from the C. Frank Dayton Photo Collection at the East Hampton Library shows the A.O. Jones Hardware Store at 51 Newtown Lane. Owned by Asa O. Jones (1857-1953), it later became East End Hardware and today is A.L.C., a clothing store.

Jul 31, 2025

Amagansett Summer Party for Joan Tulp

The Amagansett Village Improvement Society will tip its collective hat to Joan Tulp on Saturday. “I don’t think I’ve met anyone more committed to their hometown than Joan,” said Victor Gelb, who serves as co-president of the group with her.

Jul 31, 2025

 

Your support for The East Hampton Star helps us deliver the news, arts, and community information you need. Whether you are an online subscriber, get the paper in the mail, delivered to your door in Manhattan, or are just passing through, every reader counts. We value you for being part of The Star family.

Your subscription to The Star does more than get you great arts, news, sports, and outdoors stories. It makes everything we do possible.