At the Arnold Arboretum, we often reference our “founding public promise.” As the oldest public arboretum in the country, we have a long history—over 150 years—of serving as a public landscape, free and open to all.
1872–1927: Landscape Layout, Scholarship, and Beginning of Plant Collecting Trips
In the mid-1800s, two men made gifts to Harvard College: Benjamin Bussey (a Boston merchant, who amassed his wealth selling goods produced by enslaved people) left land to the school in 1842, and James Arnold, a New Bedford whaling merchant who left a financial bequest in 1868 in trust with the purpose of creating a public arboretum. George Barrell Emerson, one of Arnold’s trustees who also had close ties to Harvard, facilitated joining the Bussey and Arnold bequests and the Arnold Arboretum was founded in March 1872.
Management of the institution was placed under the direction of the young director Charles Sprague Sargent, who would go on to lead the Arboretum for the next half-century. Sargent’s first order of business was partnering with Frederick Law Olmsted on the landscape’s layout. The two brokered a partnership between Harvard and the City of Boston—Harvard gave the land to the city and then leased it back for $1 year on a 1,000-year lease, with the option of one renewal.
Sargent and the Arboretum’s early employees collaborated on various publications. In 1880, the U.S. government commissioned Sargent to create a census of American trees. In the extensive report, Sargent enumerated over 400 species of trees and illustrated their ranges in colored maps. In addition, he published his seminal 14-volume Silva of North America between 1882 and 1902, and founded Garden and Forest in 1888, a weekly periodical that quickly became a source on forestry, conservation, and horticulture during its 10-year run.
In 1892, Sargent traveled to Japan and met with Japanese botanists. The trip was a catalyst: Sargent returned with the conviction that the Arboretum should collect and grow plants from temperate parts of Asia. This kicked off three decades of Arboretum-sponsored plant collecting trips across China, Japan, and Korea.
1927–1977: Depression, World Wars, and an Emphasis on Education and Ornamental Horticulture
The Great Depression, World War II, and the Chinese Revolution forced a cessation of international plant collecting and a renewed focus on the landscape. The Arboretum weathered both literal and financial storms in the 1930s while modernizing horticultural equipment and practices.
The 1950s saw a shift from field collecting to development of new cultivars of crabapples and other plants. Public education saw a renewed interest and Arboretum Horticulturist Donald Wyman led many walking tours on the grounds.
The 1962 construction of the Dana Greenhouses adjacent to the early nurseries of the Arboretum’s first propagator Jackson Dawson, aligned with increasing focus on ornamental horticulture and experimentation. The Arboretum’s plant propagators experimented with new plant varieties, and ran instructional classes for gardeners.
1977–Present: Renewal of Plant Collecting and Research, and COVID-19 Pandemic
The 1970s and 1980s marked the return of plant collecting in temperate eastern Asia. The Arboretum partnered with other botanical institutions in Asia and North American which lead to plant exploration in China in 1980 with the Sino-American Botanical Expedition and the North America-China Plant Exploration Consortium was founded to further facilitate Chinese plant exploration.
Alongside a renewed emphasis on plant collecting trips, the Arboretum also reaffirmed its commitment to research with the construction of the Weld Hill Research Building. This state-of-the-art research facility with greenhouses and laboratories opened in 2011, and supports several Harvard professors’ laboratories, as well as visiting researchers and fellows from around the world.
At the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, as other cultural institutions were forced to close, the Arboretum’s landscape remained open, continuing to serve as a public health amenity and refuge.
2022–Present: Sesquicentennial and Beyond
In 2022, the Arboretum celebrated its 150th anniversary, or sesquicentennial. As priorities have shifted throughout the past 150 years, we have kept to our founding public promise: a public landscape for learning, open every day, free every day.