Research Notes:
August 2024

Laura Leggett met Albert Barnes in August 1900, and the couple married in June 1901. Following an extended wedding trip to Europe, they settled in Overbrook, Pennsylvania, while a house in nearby Merion was built. Mrs. Barnes supervised the construction, furnishing, and landscaping of their new house, nicknamed Lauraston.² In the early 20th century, a woman of her status was expected to make a home for her husband, which would include a garden. Books and magazines catering to the needs of suburban homeowners were plentiful, wherein writers disseminated information about garden styles and designs, plants, and practical horticulture. Women were encouraged to get involved with horticulture.

Laura Barnes’s personal library contained some of the most influential gardening and horticulture books from the first part of the 20th century, indicating her burgeoning interest. She owned books on native trees, wildflowers, and ferns by Frances Theodora Parsons, Neltje Blanchan, and George Aiken—important naturalists of the period. She also owned many titles about the practical aspects of making a garden, such as Grace Tabor’s Making a Bulb Gardenand Making the Grounds Attractive with Shrubbery, part of the House and Garden Making series. Series like these, authored by respected garden writers and landscape professionals, covered myriad topics of interest to the suburban homeowner.

Developing the Arboretum
The next move Dr. and Mrs. Barnes made was just down the street from Lauraston. In 1922, they purchased a 12-acre property on Lapsley Lane that would become home to Dr. Barnes’s growing art collection and his foundation for arts education. The property had an impressive collection of more than 250 trees amassed by the previous owner, Joseph Lapsley Wilson (1844–1928), who stipulated that they must remain untouched after the sale. His collection contained some large and unusual trees—at least eight species of magnolia and numerous oaks, as well as many Japanese specimens, such as the Cryptomeria and the Cercidiphyllum. Wilson’s conifer collection included a Nordmann fir from the mountains around the Black Sea, Retinosporas (now Chamaecyparis), and Cedrus libani. He also had a rare specimen of Franklinia (then called Gordonia alatamaha). With the purchase of the arboretum, Mrs. Barnes had an opportunity to dive deeper into the field of horticulture. She began building relationships with experts in horticulture and botany.

Mrs. Barnes contacted the Arnold Arboretum of Harvard University, headed by the renowned plantsman Charles Sprague Sargent (1851–1927). Sargent, the first director of the Arnold, was a towering figure in American horticulture. He authored many books, advocated for the preservation of American forests, and supported plant collecting expeditions. In a letter, Mrs. Barnes writes that she has been reading the arboretum's bulletins "and would be glad to exchange specimens of plants.”³ She describes the Wilson tree collection and plans for the educational use of the grounds by the foundation. Sargent’s enthusiastic reply includes the promise of seeds and an invitation to visit the Arnold Arboretum.⁴ She also began a relationship with the British plant collector and explorer E. H. Wilson (1876–1930), who collected specimens throughout Asia for the Arnold. Arboreta supported plant collecting expeditions to learn more about plant diversity, distribution, and use throughout the world. Plants are valued as food, as medicine, and in aesthetic ways. By collecting plants from different regions, scientists learn more about the natural world. E. H. Wilson appears to have visited the Barnes Arboretum in 1926 and sent many plants to Mrs. Barnes.⁵ Throughout her life, she maintained a relationship with the Arnold, corresponding and trading seeds and plants.

In the 1920s and 1930s, Laura Barnes focused on developing the land around the newly built Barnes Foundation building. Her exhaustive search for new plants found her writing to specialty nurseries and arboreta across the country to track down hard-to-find specimens. She purchased from more than 70 nurseries and built collections of lilacs, roses, and both herbaceous and tree peonies. Her gardens contained perennials and rock garden plants. The woodland area contained an extensive collection of ferns. She also focused on woody plant specimens. She was laying the groundwork for a place to study all areas of horticulture. She was constantly reading and adding to her horticulture book library and also took classes and attended lectures in the 1930s to increase her knowledge.⁶ Through the University of Pennsylvania’s College Collateral Courses, Mrs. Barnes took classes encompassing all areas of landscape study.⁷

By the end of the 1930s, Mrs. Barnes had developed a reputation in Philadelphia’s horticulture circles for her knowledge and the arboretum’s growing collection. An announcement for a lecture on ferns she delivered in 1939 at Morris Arboretum stated she was known for having “given special attention at the Barnes Foundation to the cultivation of a very large number of hardy ferns, one of the attractive and novel features of this very beautiful and interesting institution.”⁸ The announcement also said that the Barnes Arboretum’s collection had grown to include “1,250 species of woodies, rare and unusual trees, 250 lilacs, 245 roses, Cotoneasters, Barberries, broad leaf evergreens” and 88 species and varieties of fern.⁹

Founding the Arboretum School
Although using the arboretum for formal education was on the minds of both Dr. and Mrs. Barnes from the start,¹⁰ it was not until 1940 that Mrs. Barnes decided it was time to follow through on the idea. As a trustee of the foundation and director of the arboretum, she wrote an official letter to her husband and the Barnes board stating, “The time is ripe for the installation of a systematic course of instruction for students in our Arboretum.” She clearly had a plan, when she continued, “We need a building for the lectures and the classes, and we [ask to use] 57 Lapsley Lane.”¹¹ This was the house Dr. Barnes had built for Joseph Lapsley Wilson and his wife after purchasing their property. Wilson had stayed involved with the land after its sale and served as the first director of the arboretum. He and Mrs. Barnes made plant purchases and developed the arboretum together until his death in 1928. The trustees allowed the former Wilson residence to become the schoolhouse for the horticulture program, which it remained for decades.

But before writing to Dr. Barnes and the foundation, Laura Barnes had reached out to University of Pennsylvania professor John Fogg (1898–1982) for advice and help in planning the curriculum. Fogg had received his PhD in botany from Harvard and began teaching at Penn in 1925, becoming a full professor in 1944. He was instrumental in identifying and cataloging the plants at Morris Arboretum when the property was gifted to Penn following the death of founder Lydia Morris in the 1930s. He enjoyed a long career and was deeply involved with many horticulture organizations and plant societies. Because of these relationships, he was the perfect person to assist Mrs. Barnes in her goal to develop a school. It appears that they were well matched in terms of energy and focus.

Laura Barnes invited Fogg and his wife, Helen, to discuss her plans. According to Helen Fogg’s recollection, the rainy weather was not conducive to a long stroll in the Barnes Arboretum. They met in the property’s tea house instead. After a conversation about the arboretum’s plants, Mrs. Barnes got down to business. According to Dr. Fogg, Mrs. Barnes felt the Philadelphia area needed adult education in horticulture, botany, and landscape architecture. She planned to teach horticulture and wanted him to teach botany. She believed he had the proper contacts to help secure more high-caliber teachers for her school.¹²

The meeting was a success. Afterward, Fogg wrote to Mrs. Banes to express his thoughts on the school’s mission: “The more I think the matter over, the more it seems to me that we can serve the highest purpose by catering not to the well-to-do leisured garden club group, but by helping to educate the serious minded working persons who are interested in horticulture and allied subjects as an avocation, but some of whom were educational facilities provided, would like to follow it as a profession.” He also outlined course topics, provided contacts to advertise the school, and suggested holding some evening classes.¹³

It is not clear what happened to the idea of not catering to “the well-to-do garden club group” because the school, which opened in October 1940, enrolled many wealthy women over the following decades. The outbreak of World War II may have played a role in shaping the student body. However, anyone taking Barnes Arboretum classes had to be serious about the program. There were strict rules about attendance and tardiness. To ignore these rules was to risk being asked to leave the school. As Mrs. Barnes wrote to a potential student: “The Arboretum has only two requirements, regular and prompt attendance. Although two absences other than those caused by illness are allowed.”¹⁴ Students had to walk fast and not dawdle to keep up with Mrs. Barnes when outside looking at plants.

Later, in a 1957 statement to the American Association of Botanical Gardens, Mrs. Barnes summed up her program: “I disagree most strongly in the idea of making the instruction ‘popular’ or, in other words, ‘talking down’ to people. No knowledge in any science can be acquired in ‘three or four’ lectures a year. . . . A ‘hobby’ may be formed, but that is not knowledge. We are in our eighteenth year of instruction at the arboretum, and in all these years our professors . . . have never given ‘popular’ lectures. . . . We have so many applicants our rooms will not accommodate them.”¹⁵

Laura Barnes and John Fogg’s mutual respect became a warm friendship. His recollections of her illustrate genuine admiration. Through him, we can get a sense of Laura Barnes’s personality. Fogg commented on her “marvelous sense of humor.” He described her as a “tiny person” having “pleasant features, and a wonderful smile, wonderful piercing blue eyes, and just a magnetic personality.” He also noted that she could “hold her own” with the outspoken Dr. Barnes and that “he wasn’t going to push her around.”¹⁶ Fogg and his wife were devoted to Mrs. Barnes and were often guests at either Merion or Ker-Feal, the farmhouse in Chester County owned by the Barneses. Many letters between Fogg and Mrs. Barnes describe lovely lunches and conversation.¹⁷

Her students were similarly devoted. In letters to Mrs. Barnes, students often expressed their appreciation for her and the rigorous education they received at the arboretum school. One student wrote: “My eyes see things they never saw before and my life is much enriched. Your enthusiasm and vitality have been an inspiration to me.”¹⁸ For another student, even poison ivy could not ruin a day spent with Mrs. Barnes: “I have a little Poison ivy as a souvenir! Every time it itches it reminds me of that wonderful day, so I really quite enjoy it.”¹⁹

Mrs. Barnes also shared her time and knowledge with arboretum guests. Her correspondence file overflows with effusive thank-you notes. One visitor wrote: “I came away filled with inspiration and ideas. . . . I am sure I will dream about your woodland garden with its enchanted cottage.”²⁰ Another visitor, commenting on her command of horticulture, wrote, “I found you to be a walking book of knowledge.”²¹ Time spent in the arboretum with Laura Barnes provided inspiration to visitors, and, most likely, a desire to improve their own gardens.

While Dr. Barnes was busy following his passion, Laura Barnes was equally engaged with hers. And like her husband, she was ahead of her time. She championed ideas that still drive contemporary discussions about horticulture and gardens. She encouraged the use of unusual plants and lamented the use of only the easiest to propagate plants. Her plant choices exhibited multi-season interest with good bloom, interesting bark, and fall color. She researched and tested wildflowers to find those best suited to the region. She questioned pesticide use in pest management. Through her deep engagement and generosity with her time and knowledge, she developed relationships with horticulturists all over the country. The school she developed truly cultivated curiosity in her students. Her legacy is her arboretum, her school, and the [thousands] of students who completed classes. It was her “chief interest in life.”²²