In the March 1915 issue of ‘The Craftsman,’ Gustave Stickley made an impassioned plea for the preservation of New England wildflowers:
“The wild flowers of New England are one of our most precious inspirational inheritances, yet we have driven them to the fence corners with our plows, dried up with our factories the ponds and meadows they once fledged; carelessly uprooted myriads of them to gratify a momentary whim for possession. Now that their delicate beautify is in danger of vanishing completely from our land we are awakening to an appreciation of how barren and bleak the world would be without their rifts of color and wandering breaths of perfume.”
“No Record So True: The Wildflowers Photographs of Edwin Hale Lincoln (1848 – 1938)” showcases elegant black and white photographs of New England wildflowers accompanying these words by Stickley who found Lincoln as a kindred spirit. Like Henry David Thoreau, Lincoln found the woods of New England inspirational and embarked on a mission to catalogue the region’s indigenous plants and wildflowers. A naturalist with great sensitivity, he dug up his choice of plants with roots intact, wrapping the fragile roots in damp moss, and brought them to his dark basement studio to photograph under natural light. He waited until the plant flowered to its perfection and photographed using a 8”x 10” view camera. After photographing, he carefully returned the plants to the original location and replanted them. (Summarized from a chapter written by Lisa Bush Hankin)
