Garden Clubs - A Place for All

As agents of positive change, garden club leaders celebrated beauty, dedicated themselves to community improvement, and challenged Jim Crow in the process.
Meredith Henne Baker is a 2021 Virginia Humanities Fellow who held a fall writing residency at the Library of Virginia. She is writing a book about the remarkable impact of Virginia’s gardening women on the state’s landscape and policies. Baker’s research also contributed to a statewide, multi-site 2022 commemoration of the 90th anniversary of Virginia’s Black women’s garden clubs. An educator, independent scholar, and award-winning writer of Virginia history, Baker lives in the Richmond area.