Garden clubs: A serious force

First group formed in Athens in 1891, spread nationwide quickly.

In January 1891, a dozen women assembled in the parlor of Mrs. E. K. Lumpkin’s Georgia home to form the Ladies Garden Club of Athens. At first, membership was by invitation only; by the next year, however, the club’s ranks had been “thrown open (to) every lady in the city who might be interested in learning to grow anything ‘from a cabbage to a chrysanthemum,’” according to an article in the 1935-36 edition of Garden Gateways Yearbook.

Who knew they were sowing the seeds of a groundbreaking movement whose influence is still felt and seen throughout the United States?

The Athens group was the very first garden club in America, according to National Garden Clubs Inc., a not-for-profit group that comprises statewide clubs in all 50 states and the National Capital Area, 5,000 member clubs and 165,000 individual members.

As tempting as it might be to dismiss them as docile havens for white-gloved ladies to drink tea and talk petunias, garden clubs are a powerful force that’s altered our landscape both literally and figuratively. And whether it’s beautifying highways or educating the public and elected officials about environmental issues, the groundwork for much of it was laid here in Georgia.

In 1928, enough local groups had sprung up that the Garden Club of Georgia was formed by 29 of them meeting at the Biltmore Hotel in Atlanta. One of

CONTRIBUTED A historical marker commemorates the first garden club in the U.S., the Ladies Garden Club of Athens.