GCA Centennial Minute

#1 GCA Centennial Minute – May 1, 2012

GCA Historian~ Anne Myers

Garden Club of Irvington-on Hudson, Zone I 

Tel: 914-591-6402

On May 1, 2013 the Garden Club of America will meet in Philadelphia, one hundred years to the day of the First Annual Meeting held at Stenton, the home of James Logan, Secretary of State to William Penn, located just outside Philadelphia in Germantown, Pennsylvania.  Stenton had been restored by the Pennsylvania Society of Colonial Dames and was selected for this momentous occasion to emphasize the Colonial or pioneering past and the contributions of the Fathers of American Gardening.  In attendance were the newly elected Executive Committee, presidents of the twelve Founding clubs and four new member clubs and invited guests.  This small group had proven to be “pioneers” and “visionaries” in their own writ, laying the framework on May 1, 1913 for an organization that has truly changed the face of America.

The “objects”, or the GCA “credo”, drafted that day in a few short hours by Ernestine Goodman, GCA’s first Secretary and Treasurer, were broad but sufficiently focused to inspire club activities for decades to come.  The objects of association---To stimulate the knowledge and love of gardening among amateurs, to share the advantages of association through conference and correspondence, in this country and abroad, to aid in the protection of native plants and birds, and to encourage civic planting---appeared in every issue of the Bulletin and were left unchanged until the nineteen seventies.  They were revised only then to reflect GCA’s more extensive commitment to environmental concerns.

Other decisions made that day have also proven beneficial to the organization.  Motions were passed to admit professional individuals, but not professional clubs, to allow clubs containing men and to spread the membership geographically through new admissions.  A committee was established to develop the Constitution and By-Laws that were voted on at the Second Annual Meeting.

GCA Annual Meetings from that day on have played an essential role in facilitating the communication and coordination between the clubs and the GCA.  Although the First Annual Meeting included only one luncheon and garden tour, in addition to the business of the day, it established a wonderful tradition that in the following year, as noted by Ernestine Goodman, began “that giddy list of annual meeting festivities which are unique among parties.”   The Centennial Annual Meeting and associated activities and festivities will celebrate this inspired beginning and one hundred years of achievement.