Comments on: Frances Benjamin Johnston’s Garden Legacy: New Finds from the Archives

By: Dr. Erika Esau

Dr. Erika Esau — Thu, 09 Aug 2012 15:53:15 +0000

Your article here does not make it at all clear that Ms. Borrman’s work is dependent on the CONTENTS of Watters’ book. The article makes it sound like these ideas were entirely original to her while Watters simply catalogued the slides. As a young student, Borrman must learn to acknowledge her sources much more carefully, and that includes the source of her initial ideas about the topic. Perhaps the difficulty here is in the way the blog writer has presented the spin on this information. I am glad that you have now added a more appropriate reference to the Watters book.

By: Leah Binkovitz

Leah Binkovitz — Thu, 09 Aug 2012 14:30:25 +0000

Watters work is certainly critical in Borrman’s process, and she is the first to say as much. To be certain, “Borrman was able to use his research to pair hand-colored slides from the Archives with their black and white negative counterparts in the Library of Congress’ extensive collection.” Because of what Watters was able to do at the Library of Congress, Borrman can now complete a similar project with a separate collection of materials donated by the Garden Club of America. The collection in the Library of Congress was left by Frances Benjamin Johnston whereas the images in the Archives were likely slides from lectures that the Garden Club hosted but which Johnston produced. We see Borrman’s work as an exciting and new contribution. We’ve added a link to Watters’ book as well and will be adding a link to the Archives’ soon-to-be completed Flickr page of its materials.

By: Beth Py-Lieberman

Beth Py-Lieberman — Wed, 08 Aug 2012 22:03:53 +0000

Yes. I agree. We need to give credit where credit is due; and Mr. Watters book is a fabulous work and a mere link in the text to it does not do the book justice. I've added text and a link so that readers can find his book on Amazon. Ed

By: Charlotte Mayerson

Charlotte Mayerson — Wed, 08 Aug 2012 18:01:19 +0000

Earlier this month I read the impressive new book, GARDENS FOR A BEAUTIFUL AMERICA by Sam Watters.The book is distinguished by its scholarship, its organization, its biographical detail, and its rendering of the social history of the period. This article simply lifts ideas, concepts, language, and approach from Watters’ work without citation or acknowledgement. I am shocked that the Smithsonian would have posted such material on its website.

By: Dr. Erika Esau

Dr. Erika Esau — Tue, 07 Aug 2012 23:17:18 +0000

As an academic and librarian who has read every bit of Sam Watters’ book Gardens for a Beautiful America, I am dismayed and perplexed to see his efforts dismissed here as having “helped research” this topic. Watters worked on the 1,100 Johnston images for five years, when no one else knew what to make of them. As I have written in a review of his book, his text “provides as thorough an account of a time and place in America, and of a class of people, as could possibly be given in the early twenty-first century.” While Ms. Borrman may add some additional contextual information, the framework for this topic, and an enormous amount of primary research, was thoroughly formulated by Watters and presented in his book. As I would tell my students, simply paraphrasing or changing the sentences of a writer does not absolve one from giving credit where credit is due.