Hunnewell Building, 1976. Photographer unknown.

The Arboretum Through Time

Historic Views of Our Landscape

This collection of pre-2000 images captures and records the evolution of the Arnold Arboretum’s landscape and its living collections. Rather than highlighting specimen trees, the images reflect the overall look of the Arboretum: its hilltops, valleys, distant vistas, and distinct plant groupings such as the oak, lilac, rhododendron, and conifer collections. Also included are studies of our buildings, stonewalls, ornamental iron gates, and roads and paths.

View the exhibit and see a list of the photographers.

These images were selected from a collection of historic photographs which are
cataloged in Harvard’s Visual Images Access database and may be seen by accessing VIA.

All 1,463 images can be viewed here or you may search within VIA by entering additional
keywords.  

• The names of specific collections, such as cherry, rhododendron, or
  willow
• Generic terms for landscape features, such as brook, gate, hill,
  or road
• Broad terms, such as conifers, shrubs, trees, or vines
• Botanical names of genera, such as Abies, Betula, Rhododendron,
  or of species, Abies alba, Betula ermanii, Rhododendron viscosum
• The common names of specific plants, such as serviceberry, dawn
  redwood, pinkshell azalea
• The name of a photographer, such as Thomas E. Marr, Donald Wyman,
  Herbert Wendell Gleason, or Pamela Bruns