Rose Vincent is the Resource Sharing Librarian in the LuEsther T. Mertz Library of the New York Botanical Garden.

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During the 1930s, the number of women gardeners at NYBG was sparse. But due to the war, the Garden’s personnel greatly changed by 1943, causing an increase in women and older male gardeners at the Garden. NYBG gained 34 new staff members—of which 18 were men and 16 were women. These new women gardeners propagated plants, maintained the Victory and Rock Garden, created and labeled plants, assisted in flower exhibitions, and completed general maintenance work: planting, replanting, clipping, and pruning large trees and shrubs.

Mrs. George Brown served as a student gardener from 1943 to ’45 and studied the gardening profession.

One of the few women to join the Garden and assist in maintaining NYBG’s plant records was Bride McSweeney, who joined the Gardening department in 1943 after several male employees left to serve in the Army. McSweeney served as the Plant Records Foreman.

Prior to joining the horticulture team, Angelina D’Asaro (also known as Angelina Perez) was an NYBG library volunteer. For three months, she typed approximately 600 subject cards for the Plant Patent files and assisted with general routine work around the library. Later, she was appointed a temporary Gardener, and worked on Forster orchids. She then joined the horticulture’s labeling and accessioning team, keeping records, making records, collecting seeds, and familiarizing herself with various botanical names.

Filling a vacant female gardener position, Anne Seaman applied to work at NYBG as it was one of her ambitions to work at the New York Botanical Garden. She attended and passed several NYBG courses: Plant Morphology, Plant Pests and Diseases, and Plant Physiology—and specialized as the caretaker of the Rock Garden. For over two decades, Anne remained at the Garden, wearing many hats as NYBG’s Plant Propagator, illustrator, and commentator in NYBG’s Garden journal.

Ellen Alspaugh was a temporary gardener and remained at the Garden for one year.

Mrs. Emma Ahles son, Harry Ahles, inspired her to apply and work at the Garden. Harry served as an NYBG Gardener and later became a well-known field botanist, collecting specimens and becoming a botany professor. Emma Ahles was appointed a temporary gardener, working on the Forster Orchid Collection.

From our very founding by Elizabeth Knight Britton and Nathaniel Lord Britton, to the designs of our most treasured collections, and the day-to-day work of maintaining these stunning 250 acres, NYBG wouldn’t be the world-renowned institution that it is today without these and the many other women who have made their mark over the last 134 years. And in the Mertz Library, you’ll still find many of their stories to explore.