Child tending community garden in Abbott Park. Photo courtesy of Chicago Park District.
After nearly two months of self-isolation during the COVID-19 crisis, many of us are looking for ways to relieve stress and stay calm. Now that May is here, and the weather is improving, gardening offers a healthy and relaxing outlet, if you have a patch of land or a sunny balcony. Jens Jensen (1860-1951), one of my favorite historical figures, deeply believed in the therapeutic benefits of gardening. He introduced some of Chicago’s first community gardens in the early 20th century. In an essay entitled “For Native Landscapes,” Jensen wrote that gardens “appeal to the fine feelings of mankind and elevate the depressed in soul and mind to a higher place in the human family and to a greater appreciation of the responsibilities of freeborn men and women.”
Children’s Garden in Dvorak Park, ca. 1910. Chicago Park District Records: Photographs, Special Collections, Chicago Public Library.
Jens Jensen, ca. 1910. Courtesy of Morton Arboretum.
In previous blogs, I’ve discussed Jens Jensen’s early history, the development of his naturalistic style, and his creation of the iconic Garfield Park Conservatory. I am devoting this month to Jensen’s efforts to engage Chicagoans in gardening—especially community and kitchen gardens for cultivating vegetables.
When Jensen was appointed as General Superintendent and Chief Landscape Architect of Chicago’s West Park Commission in 1905, he was specifically recruited to help reform the park system. Several months after he accepted the position, voters approved a $2 million bond issue to refurbish the existing parks, which had fallen into disrepair as a result of political corruption. While Jensen focused on improvements to Humboldt, Garfield, and Douglas Parks, he knew that there was a dire need for new greenspaces on the city’s densely populated West Side.
Jensen’s improvements to Humboldt Park included this Japanese-style shelter and children’s wading pool, ca. 1910. Chicago Park District Records: Photographs, Special Collections, Chicago Public Library.
A Plea for Playgrounds, Special Park Commission, 1905, p. 11.
During this period, Jensen and other social reformers rallied for the creation of small parks and playgrounds for the crowded tenement districts on the city’s West Side. While a revolutionary small park system was nearing completion on the South Side, little progress had been made to provide similar open spaces in the squalid neighborhoods within the West Park Commission’s jurisdiction. Jensen served on the Special Park Commission, a mayoral task force that made recommendations regarding open space. Recognizing the intense need for new parks on the West Side, the Special Park Commission published “A Plea for Playgrounds.” This 1905 pamphlet suggested that there was an “urgent need” to create “small parks and playgrounds and breathing spaces for the thousands of toilers and their families who are compelled to live in the congested and ill-favored portions of the city.”
In 1907, the West Park Commissioners finally had the opportunity to begin developing three small parks. The commissioners had to displace thousands of people in order to build these new parks. Jensen looked to the pioneering neighborhood parks of the South Park Commission for inspiration. Designed by landscape architects the Olmsted Brothers and architects D.H. Burnham & Company, these small open spaces had playgrounds, athletic fields, swimming and wading pools, running tracks, and field houses—new buildings with clubrooms and gymnasiums inspired by settlement houses. While Jensen’s small parks would include these elements, his design approach was somewhat different because he believed these parks should have “more green and less gravel.” The new West Side Parks would be the first new public green spaces in over 30 years. Originally called Parks No. 1, 2, and 3, they were soon named Eckhart, Stanford, and Dvorak Parks. (Stanford Park was razed in the 1950s to make way I90/94.)
Top: Cornell Square was one of the original South Side neighborhood parks designed by the Olmsted Brothers and D.H. Burnham & Company, ca. 1905. Chicago Park District Records: Photographs, Special Collections, Chicago Public Library. Bottom: Aerial view of the Jensen-designed Eckhart Park, ca. 1910, from Annual Report of the West Park Commissioners.
Jensen was concerned that Chicago’s children didn’t know where their food came from, and he believed that all city residents would benefit from working the soil. So, despite severe space limitations, he set aside an area for a children’s garden in both 8-acre Eckhart Park and 3.8-acre Dvorak Park. The two small parks were completed in 1908. The following year, the garden plots were made available to neighborhood children. A West Park System gardener was assigned to help the youngsters plant and care for their vegetables. The gardener was on site from 4 p.m. to 6 p.m. twice a week. Each child had his or her own plot, and could plant as many as three crops of vegetables over the course of the summer.
Children’s Gardens, Eckhart Park, Annual Report of the West Park Commissioners, 1915.
Within the first couple of years of the program, the West Park Commission had professional social workers take over as the gardening teachers. In a , 1914 Chicago Tribune article called “’Kiddies’ Cut Living Cost,” Miss Mary Goldsmith, Dvorak Park’s social worker, explained that 70 children were participating in her garden program. She required each child who accepted a plot to make a promise to tend their garden at least four times a week. She told the reporter that mothers loved “picking day, which is Friday,” when the children often brought home large yields of beets, radishes, lettuce, and other vegetables.
Left: “’Kiddies Cut Living Cost,” Chicago Tribune, August 29, 1914. Right: Harrison Park children’s garden, ca. 1918. Chicago Park District Records: Photographs, Special Collections, Chicago Public Library.
By the WWI era, the West Park Commission had children’s gardens in Eckhart, Dvorak, and Harrison Parks, as well as demonstration gardens in Humboldt, Garfield, and Douglas Parks. Park gardeners planted and tended the demonstration gardens and used them to inspire and educate the public. Gardeners also went into various city neighborhoods to help area residents plant vegetable gardens on vacant lots. These gardens were meant to help fill the need for food resulting from wartime shortages.
Jensen’s Plan for a Greater West Park System (1918), published 1920.
At that time, Jensen was completing his ambitious Plan for a Greater West Park System. In this detailed report, he recommended adding tens of thousands of additional green spaces to Chicago’s existing West Park System. His proposals called for a network of municipal kitchen gardens.
Proposed Community Market Garden Adjoining Park Site, Plan for a Greater West Park System (1918), published 1920.
In the report accompanying the plan, Jensen wrote: “I believe the city should own tracts of land for the growing of vegetables and fruits, where citizens can see and understand that their real existence comes out of Mother Earth, and that the merchant or peddler is only a means of delivery.” Jensen wanted to have such kitchen gardens near factories and businesses so that workers could tend their gardens before and after the workday, and could pick and bring their fresh produce home.
Senn Unity Garden. Photo courtesy of Chicago Park District.
It has been exactly 100 years since the publication of Jensen’s Plan for a Greater West Park System, and today community gardening is more popular than ever in Chicago. Various organizations throughout the city have community gardening programs including the Chicago Park District. Although Jensen envisioned community gardening as a large group activity, it seems like something that people can do while social distancing. I hope you’ll have the chance to enjoy digging in the dirt soon. I know I will!