watch the short

title:
The American Lawn, A very Brief History
with Virginia Scott Jenkins

directors:
Isaac Brown, Eric Flagg

producers:
Jellyfish Smack Productions, Peggy Notebaert Nature Museum

cinematographers/editors:
Isaac Brown, Eric Flagg

running time:
5 min

year produced:
2008

info:
The first lawns arrived in the US in the 18 century, popularized by wealthy landowners looking to reproduce an English aesthetic. At the time, maintaining a lawn required more open land and labor-intensive upkeep than most people could afford.

By the mid 19th century, the lawn had begun to attract more egalitarian champions, like the urban developer Fredrick Law Olmsted, who designed the Chicago suburb of Riverside.
Nearly 75 years later, advances in mowing technology and selective herbicides, along with a post World War II housing boom, all helped the lawn become a mass phenomenon.

Here lawn historian Victoria Scott Jenkins traces the growth of that phenomenon, from George Washington’s Mont Vernon estate, to Olmsted’s Riverside, to the suburban aesthetic we know best today.

distribution:
This piece was commissioned by the Peggy Notebaert Nature Museum in Chicago for their "Lawn Nation" exhibit. www.naturemuseum.org