The Liberty Hyde Bailey Center Project

"I once asked an old gardener how much land he had and he said with pride that he had one acre; and he added, 'It is a wonderful acre; it reaches to the center of the earth in one direction and it takes in the stars in the other.'"

–Liberty Hyde Bailey, from The Harvest of the Year to the Tiller of the Soil (1927), p. 48

Updates! Given our progress, Cornell has given us more time to raise funds; a $675,000 grant application has been submitted; and we welcome John Linstrom as Director of the Liberty Hyde Bailey Center Project.

All this and more in our latest newsletter (consider subscribing!): http://eepurl.com/QoTwnLpW_7

Picture: John at The Climate Museum for the launch of his poetry book in April 2024

"'Is it not the fault amongst us, also,' continues Questor, 'that we are in danger of losing our mysticism? The hard realities, I fear, drive out the spiritual meanings and these meanings have lost standing. We have little patience with intangible ideas, wanting those that are evident, immediate and demonstrable. Yet the mystic, if sensible, makes the nearest approach to real solutions. I cannot forget the speech of Socrates as he waits the fatal cup, as Plato saith in the immortal Crito: "This is the voice which I seem to hear murmuring in my ears, like the sound of the flute in the ears of the mystic; that voice, I say, is humming in my ears, and prevents me from hearing any other."'"

–Liberty Hyde Bailey (a scientist), from The Seven Stars (1923), pp. 130-131

Image: The Death of Socrates (1787) by Jacques-Louis David. Catharine Lorillard Wolfe Collection, Wolfe Fund, 1931. Public domain.

A follow-up to yesterday's post about David A. Williston, first professionally-trained Black landscape architect whose work shaped the campuses of many HBCUs. This photo shows Williston, fourth standing from left, with the Horticultural Lazy Club in 1896. Williston was the first Black member of the club, which Bailey founded, and claimed never to have missed a meeting during his student years. Bailey is seen standing at the far right in this image.

More about Williston's time at Cornell at the following blog post, including a full scan of the letter quoted in our last post (in which Williston writes that "Dr. Bailey inspired men to study plant life, and and I am now happy to state that I was a student of his for more than sixty years"), written by Cornell historian Ed Cobb: https://blogs.cornell.edu/sipshistory/2021/12/22/david-a-williston-98-was-the-first-professionally-trained-african-american-landscape-architect-in-the-u-s/

Image courtesy Cornell University, via the link above.

Late in his life, accomplished Black landscape architect David A. Williston wrote in a letter to Cornell University that his professor Liberty Hyde Bailey “inspired me to study plant life, and I am happy to state that I was a student of his for more than 60 years.” Quoted in Carol Kammen, Part & Apart, pp. 33–34.

Today, Williston's remarkable story should be better known in its own right. The thread at this link is one starting place: https://www.threads.com/.rva/post/DF8s6HXRvI6?xmt=AQG0kghGX_yjM_E4O1M0Q30KQyYaNeTdXZHHQxpp5-BaJhyct9dNc8tuGcOGssaKeeTTIJx3&slof=1

Jenna Robinson (@jennarobinson.rva) on Threads • #BlackHistoryMonth : While I was researching for the novel I’m currently querying for, which focuses on female landscape architects at the turn of the 20th century, I stumbled upon David A. Williston. In my novel, I show how head gardeners in the South in the early 1900s were mostly Black. But often, even if these gardeners were well-educated and brilliant in their professions, they ran into problems most of us have never encountered. 🧵

NGC HISTORY
The first recipient of what has become the Award of Excellence for Nonmembers was presented at the 1949 Convention to the renowned Dr. Liberty Hyde Bailey who was 91 at the time. President Helen Hull described him as a "longtime Cornell University dean, who left his mark as the most important person to advance agriculture in America. His three volumes of Standard Cyclopedia of Horticulture were heralded as masterpieces in the field".

"[…] All this lies in the alembic of the sun, of the sun so many millions and millions of miles away, that no man can compass and comprehend, that sends invisible rays through unimagined void and cold to strike as if by accident this tiny mote of earth floating in the vast and dead abyss. Its rays strike also on Saturn and on Mars. Inconceivable are the arcana of death; incomparably minute are the atoms in space where life resides. Yet these atoms are all in all unto themselves; continuous is the renewal, and neither sun nor earth grows weary."

–Liberty Hyde Bailey, from The Seven Stars (1923), p. 77

Image: "Sun Emits a Solstice CME," December 8, 2017, NASA, link in comments

Many thanks to our elder sister institution out west for this nice shout-out!

A tip of the gardener's hat to former museum director John Linstrom as he takes on his role as Director of The Liberty Hyde Bailey Center Project in Ithaca, NY. His work will involve saving and restoring Liberty Hyde Bailey's home, herbarium, and greenhouse, and creating a new public nonprofit institution rooted in Bailey's philosophy.

We invite you to learn more about the project at https://www.bailey-center.org/ and to follow its new page at https://www.facebook.com/libertyhydebaileycenter .

Bonus Video: Museum directors John Linstrom and John Stempien explore Bailey's Ithaca home in 2018: https://youtu.be/O36EZl4yeRg?si=PQPVR3hsmBsf-FY0

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Join Our Mailing List — The Liberty Hyde Bailey Center Project Subscribe Sign up with your email address to be among the first to receive updates about the campaign’s progress. First Name Last Name Email Address Sign Up We respect your privacy. Thank you! Taken on his 62nd birthday, this photograph shows Bailey at the long Office desk where he wrote many of h...

Incoming Bailey Center Director John Linstrom recently shared the following thoughts about his upcoming transition into the new role and the road that led him here:

On Leaving the Tenure Track; or, on the Scent of Deep Gladness, Deep Hunger Learning to follow my own vocational advice—an odyssey to Ithaca.