The Shirley-Eustis House's Annual Spring Garden Talk returns on Saturday, March 1!
In this illustrated, online talk, early American literature scholar Thomas Hallock discusses the pre-Revolutionary travels of Quaker naturalist William Bartram. The lecture will begin with a review of eighteenth-century garden culture, from plant collectors to systematic botany, showing how these practices unfolded alongside unstable political movements and an insecure United States. Authors such as Wiliam Bartram, who traveled through the South in the 1760s and 1770s, brought home new specimens, which found their place in drawing rooms and gardens of wealthy northerners and Europeans. Behind the specimen, however, lies story upon story. Join us for a talk that will encourage you to think about the human history of a plant.
Admission for this event is based on a sliding scale structure. We suggest a donation of $10 per attendee, but please pay what you are able.
Questions? Contact us at programs@shirleyeustishouse.org.
About our Speaker:
Thomas Hallock is Professor of English at the University of South Florida. He is the author of the monograph, From the Fallen Tree: Frontier Narratives, Environmental Politics, and the Roots of a National Pastoral, and co-editor (with Nancy E. Hoffmann) of Wiliam Bartram, the Search for Nature's Design: Selected Letters, Art, and Unpublished Manuscripts. With his partner Julie Armstrong, Tom is currently co-editing a two-volume anthology of Florida literature, from 1513 to the present. He lives in St. Petersburg, in a home surrounded by native plants, where he and Julie have raised their now-adult son.