Chance, H: The Factory in a Garden

The factory in a garden is the first book to give a comprehensive account of the contribution of gardens, gardening and outdoor recreation to the history of responsible capitalism and ethical working practices in Britain and the USA. Delving into company archives, the author questions how landscape design contributed to the history and culture of factories from the late nineteenth century. She questions the integrity of industrialists who used gardens and gardening as forms of social engineering, control and promotion and suggests that today's domesticated and 'playful' office landscapes are created in the same spirit as those in the early twentieth century. The book reveals new insights into the 'special relationship' between British and American industrialists as they shaped their production facilities in the Progressive Era. Factory gardens and parks contributed significantly to employee welfare policies and to wider social changes in ways that historians have not yet acknowledged, including the sports and leisure revolution, women's employment, public health, gardening and suburban development. The factory in a garden makes an important contribution to the topical debate on the health and well-being of society and provides a historical context for many contemporary concerns about the quality of life at work, how we maintain access to open space and how gardening need not be restricted to private gardens or municipal allotments, but can take place in unconventional places. This book will appeal to practitioners, students and lecturers involved in British and American landscape, cultural and social history and all those interested in the history of gardens and gardening.