The gardens of the British working class / Margaret Willes.

Main entry:

Willes, Margaret.

Title & Author:

The gardens of the British working class / Margaret Willes.

Publication:

New Haven : Yale University Press, [2014]

Description:

413 pages : illustrations (some color) ; 24 cm

Notes:
Includes bibliographical references (pages 396-401) and index.
Finer points of husbandry -- Vital remedies -- Working gardeners -- A passion for flowers -- Two nations -- Hard times -- Climbing the wall -- Sources of inspiration -- The spirit of competition -- Revolutions in taste -- Digging for victory in peace and war -- Homes and gardens -- Ancient and modern -- A nation of gardeners.
Dust jacket.

Summary:

"This ... illustrated people's history celebrates the extraordinary feats of cultivation by the working class in Britain, even if the land they toiled, planted, and loved was not their own. Spanning more than four centuries, from the earliest records of the laboring classes in the country to today, Margaret Willes's research unearths lush gardens nurtured outside rough workers' cottages and horticultural miracles performed in blackened yards, and reveals the ingenious, sometimes devious, methods employed by determined, obsessive, and eccentric workers to make their drab surroundings bloom. She also explores the stories of the great philanthropic industrialists who provided gardens for their workforces, the fashionable rich stealing the gardening ideas of the poor, alehouse syndicates and fierce rivalries between vegetable growers, flower-fanciers cultivating exotic blooms on their city windowsills, and the rich lore handed down from gardener to gardener through generations. This is a sumptuous record of the myriad ways in which the popular cultivation of plants, vegetables, and flowers has played--and continues to play--an integral role in everyday British life."--Publisher's description.

Resources:
EBSCOhost
Table of contents

ISBN:

9780300187847 (hardback)
030018784X (hardback)
0300206259 (electronic bk.)
9780300206258 (electronic bk.)

Subject:

Gardens Great Britain History.
Gardening Great Britain History.
Working class Dwellings Great Britain History.
Travailleurs Habitations Grande-Bretagne Histoire.
Gardening.
Gardens
Working class Dwellings
Arbeiterklasse
Garten
Trädgård historia Storbritannien.
Great Britain
Großbritannien

Form/genre:

History

Holdings:

Location: Library main 285989
Call No.: BIB 226064
Status: Available

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