1911 – City Women Learn Gardening at Mrs. Belmont’s Farm

Pupils of Mrs. Belmont’s Farm for Girls. Larger image here.

New York Times
March 5, 1911

Down at Mrs. Belmont’s place on Long Island there are 200 acres adjoining her house which she wants in time to turn over entirely to women farmers. Gardening, the care of lawns, raising vegetables, growing fruits, every side of work about a “big place” will be taught. And in a year or two the women will go out qualified to earn a good living, and, with thrift, to become owners of their own farms.

Home of Pupils of Mrs’s Belmont’s Farm for Girls. Larger image here.

Mrs. Belmont is aiming to reach the working girls who are tied up now in unpleasant factories doing monotonous things with machines. But at first she expects to take some older women, because they will naturally be the most eager for the opportunity, having less concern with pomps and vanities, and also because it will be a little easier to get things into running order with them than with the girls.

“The objection might be made that the work was too hard for women. Now, I don’t see that it is. If a woman can bend over a washtub all day or crawl over floors as she scrubs them, she can attend to beds of flowers or vegetables with no greater physical strain. In Europe, of course, much of the gardening is done by women. It simply has not been the custom here.”

At work on Mrs’s Belmont’s Farm for Girls. Larger image here.

Link to long article onMrs. Belmont’s Farm for Women, New York Times March 5, 1911.

Link to short articleWOMEN TAUGHT TO FARM.; Mrs. Belmont Opens a School for Them on Long Island. New York Times, February 26, 1911.