Catherine Howett
Published by University of Massachusetts Press in association with LALH
May 2007
Cloth $39.95
To order: University of Massachusetts Press
tel. 800-537-5487, fax 410-516-6998
Only a few years after marrying tobacco magnate R. J. Reynolds, young Katharine Smith Reynolds (1880–1924) began to plan a new home for her family. Katharine’s sense of purpose for her vast resources was unusual: She envisioned founding a model community that would emphasize health, modern technology, mixed-crop scientific farming, education, and rural beauty. To realize this dream, she drew on the most progressive ideas of her era.
Catherine Howett begins her analysis of Katharine’s unusual achievement with her childhood in Mount Airy, North Carolina, and the defining southern values that framed her experiences there. Howett follows Katharine through her transformative education at the state Normal School, which guided her, a new woman of the New South, in all that followed.
In 1904, when Katharine embarked on her estate project in Winston (now Winston-Salem), North Carolina, the South was still feeling the effects of the Civil War and a century of single-crop farming. After conducting exhaustive research, she began to lay out her property, Reynolda. Her plan was inspired, in part, by the rural landscapes of England that had earlier captured the imagination of Frederick Law Olmsted.
A welcoming bungalow for her family was surrounded by a landscaped park, set amid thriving farm fields and pastures, with a village of homes and gardens, a church, and a school for farm employees. Beginning in 1915, Katharine was aided by Thomas W. Sears, a Philadelphia-based landscape architect. The estate eventually expanded to cover more than 1,000 acres.
Illustrated with 150 photographs, plans, and drawings, Howett’s study analyzes the singular convergence of influences that occurred in the imagination of a highly unusual woman. The book provides welcome insight into the culture of the New South and into a richly inventive period in the history of American landscape architecture.
“Brilliantly written—uplifting and riveting—this books brings out of obscurity a ‘new woman’ of the South, who dedicated her brief life to the creation of a place called Reynolda. Not a professional herself, but an enlightened client, Katherine Smith Reynolds worked closely with architects, landscape designers, and other professionals to give concrete expression to a world of her own making. Because she acted in her own right, while her husband provided endorsement and financial support, Howett considers the development of Reynolda ‘one of the most important women’s projects of its era.’ Howett provides background on the technology, cultural norms, design concepts, and social relationships that affected the appearance and lifestyle of the progressive community. Her sympathy with southern culture sets just the right tone. Her knowledge of it permits her to address a wide range of related topics that enhance the story. Readers, especially women, will find inspiration in its pages.” —Barbara B. Millhouse, author of American Originals and president, Reynolda House, Museum of American Art
Catherine Howett, FASLA, is professor emerita in the School of Environmental Design at the University of Georgia.
Click here to read a preservation case study of Reynolda. |
