KING, Louisa Yeomans

Born 1863, Washington, New Jersey; died 16 January 1948, Milton, Massachusetts

Wrote under: Mrs. Francis King

Daughter of Alfred and Elizabeth Ramsay Yeomans; married Francis King, 1890; children: three

A well-known garden writer in her time, Louisa Yeomans King was an influential and active supporter of the Garden Club movement and many horticultural societies. The daughter of a Presbyterian clergyman, she was educated at private schools. She was the mother of three children and lived for many years in Alma, Michigan, but moved to South Hartford, New York, in 1928. She was a founder of the Women's National Farm and Garden Association, belonged to various horticultural societies, and served as a vice president of the Garden Club of America. In 1921 she was awarded the George Robert White medal by the Massachusetts Horticultural Society and in 1923 the Garden Club of America Medal of Honor.

All of her garden books are concerned with the practical aspects of gardening and garden planning. While she often referred to her own gardens, she did not write the sort of personal garden books associated with writers like Gertrude Jekyll and Elizabeth Lawrence. Her work belongs to the large group of books by American women for American women encouraging their active participation in the art of gardening. Illustrated with photographs of elaborate garden schemes, most of King's works chronicle the gardening possibilities of the prosperous middle-class American. While her advice is sound and her writing style admirable, much of her work is dated because she devotes much space to discussing particular named varieties available at that time.

Her first book, The Well-Considered Garden (1915), went through many editions. Basically, it is an introduction to gardening on a somewhat rich scale, with chapters on "Color Harmony" and "A Small Spring Flower Border." In "The Question of the Gardener" she writes, "A book on gardening in its varying aspects could hardly omit mention of that man who must be constantly in sight of those who garden, the gardener, the paid, the earnest, and almost always the friendly, assistant in our labors with flowers." Among other advice she gives in this chapter on the gardener is to pay him well, at least $100 a month.

Two of her very popular books, The Little Garden (1921) and Variety in the Little Garden (1923), were, however, less remote from the average American gardener. The premise behind these two books is that the usual in gardening with taste is a large garden, so the small garden requires special attention. In The Little Garden, she mourns the rise of the automobile, partly because a garage is now needed with most homes, taking up valuable garden space, and partly for social reasons: "I see sometimes the deterioration of the family, physical and mental, brought about by the Ford and its kind."

King wrote extensively for garden magazines and for newspapers like the New York Times, and often her chapters first appeared elsewhere. One of her most interesting pieces is a chapter in Pages from a Garden Note-Book (1921), originally read at the opening of a dormitory for women agriculture students at Massachusetts Agricultural College (now the University of Massachusetts). In "Vocations for Women in Agriculture," she tells of the founding of the Women's National Farm and Garden Association in 1913. The goal of the organization was to encourage women to seek jobs on the land and to serve as a sort of information bureau about such work. Centered in Chicago, the association had members who raised such things as poultry, bees, petunia seed, and Poland China hogs. This association was part of the growing consciousness of women's ability to do physical work outside the home. King looked forward to an extension of such opportunities for women.

King's nine books, published over a short period of 15 years, were among the most widely read garden books of her day. While lacking the scope and influence of Louise Beebe Wilder and the scholarship of Helen M. Fox and Elizabeth Lawrence, King was probably closer than any of these women to the average middle class reader.

Other Works:

Chronicles of the Garden (1925). The Beginner's Garden (1927). The Flower Garden Day by Day (1927). The Gardener's Colour Book (1929). From a New Garden (1930).

Bibliography:

Reference works:

NAW (1971). Other references: NYT (18 Jan. 1948).

—BEVERLY SEATON