In this collection are photographs by siblings Florence and Karl Maynard, known collectively as "The Maynards"; M. E. Hewitt; and Olmsted Brothers, most likely all commissioned for an article about Newport gardens published in The Boston Evening Transcript in 1923. The collection also includes two newsprint pages bearing the published article, which reproduces several of the images. Not all images in the article are included as photographic prints in the collection. The photographs in the collection depict the Beacon Hill House, Hammersmith Farm, the Mason Villa, Miramar, Whiteholme, and Mariemont.
Several of the photographs of the Blue Garden at Beacon Hill House are marked “Olmsted negative,” probably indicating that they are prints of negatives from landscape architecture firm Olmsted Brothers’ office or records collection.
Materials in this collection are in the public domain.
The collection is open to the public, and there are no restrictions on access. However, the collection can only be seen by scheduled appointment.
Description or title of item, PSNCA.H.043: Newport gardens photographs, Box #, Folder #, Preservation Society of Newport County, Newport, RI.
The collection is organized to the item level, grouped by property, in a single series.
In covering the Garden Club of America’s trip to Newport in June 1923, James Ernest King, associate editor of The Boston Evening Transcript, commissioned photographs of several prominent Newport gardens to publish alongside an article by Newport writer Maud Howe Elliott. This collection of photographs represents some of the photographs commissioned for the article, as well as several photographs of the Blue Garden printed from negatives from the firm of Olmsted Brothers, who designed the garden.
Most of the photographs were taken by The Maynards and M. E. Hewitt. Florence Maynard (b. Chicago, 1867-1958) and Karl Maynard (1874-1951) were children of Otis Riley Maynard and Minerva Bowen Maynard. Raised in Massachusetts, Florence trained as a painter but also worked as an assistant to photographer Gertrude Käsebier when she was in art school. The siblings had a studio in Philadelphia and also maintained studios in Burton and Waban, Massachusetts. The prints here and in other collections are often signed “F and K M” or “The Maynards.”
Mattie Edwards Hewitt (1869-1956) was an architectural photographer. She had a strong personal and professional relationship with photographer Frances Benjamin Johnston, and they photographed many public buildings in New York City. By 1917 Hewitt was working solo and specialized in photography of interiors and gardens.
James Ernest King (ca. 1891-1953) was writer and associate editor of The Boston Evening Transcript. After graduating from Williams College in 1912 graduate, he was later the press director for its Institute of Politics 1921-1925; and served as assistant managing editor of Boston Transcript 1914-1939. He also worked as a speech and proclamation writer for Boston Mayor Maurice J. Tobin. Williams College awarded him an Honorary Master of Arts in 1935. His wife Alice Leavitt King (1887-1983) was a concert soprano who toured internationally. They had one daughter, Celia King Kahlberg (d. 2008), and a son, James Ernest King Jr. (1927-1958).
The photographs in the collection depict six Aquidneck Island estates, five in Newport and one in Middletown: Beacon Hill House, Arthur Curtiss James and Harriet Parson James’s estate (demolished); Hammersmith Farm, owned by Hugh Dudley Auchincloss Sr. and Emma Jennings Auchincloss (extant); the Miss Ellen Mason Villa (converted St. Michael’s Country Day School); Miramar, the Ellen Widener and A. Hamilton Rice estate (extant); Whiteholme, the Henry Barton Jacobs estate (demolished); and Mariemont in Middletown, the Mary Muhlenberg Hopkins Emery estate (extant).
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