Acclaimed Author and Historian Andrea Wulf to Speak about Plants, Politics, and Personalities
Winchester, VA 08/09/13…Author and award-winning historian Andrea Wulf will detail how plants, politics, and personalities intertwined in this country’s Revolutionary era in the 2 p.m. lecture, “Founding Gardeners: The Revolutionary Generation, Nature, and the Shaping of the American Nation,” this Sunday, August 11, at the Museum of the Shenandoah Valley.
In her illustrated presentation, Wulf will discuss George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, and James Madison from the unique perspective of their lives as gardeners, plant hobbyists, and farmers.
Born in India, Andrea Wulf lives in Britain, where she trained as a design historian at the Royal College of Art. She is a fulltime writer and author of The Brother Gardeners: Botany, Empire and the Birth of an Obsession and the co-author of This Other Eden: Seven Great Gardens and 300 Years of English History. Her book Founding Gardeners: The Revolutionary Generation, Nature, and the Shaping of the American Nation was published to great acclaim in 2011. Wulf’s most recent book, Chasing Venus, was published in eight countries. She has written for the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, the Wall Street Journal, the Sunday Times, and the Guardian. She has lectured to audiences at the Royal Geographical Society and Royal Society in London, the American Philosophical Society in Philadelphia, Monticello, and the Chicago Botanic Garden. Wulf also is a three-time fellow of the International Center for Jefferson Studies at Monticello and is the 2013 Eccles British Library Writer in Residence. Wulf’s presentation at the MSV will be followed by a book signing and sale of Founding Gardeners and The Brother Gardeners. Both hardcover publications are now available in the Museum Store for $35 each.
According to Rhonda Smith, the Museum’s adult programs coordinator, tickets are still available for the event. Tickets, which include the lecture and admission to the Museum’s Glen Burnie Gardens and galleries, are $20 for MSV Members and $25 for all others. Those interested in purchasing tickets should call the MSV at 540-662-1473, ext. 235, or stop by the Visitor Information Desk in the Museum lobby.
The Museum of the Shenandoah Valley is located at 901 Amherst Street in Winchester, Virginia. The MSV complex—which includes galleries, the Glen Burnie House, and six acres of gardens—is open Tuesday through Sunday from 10 a.m. until 4 p.m. Daytime admission to the MSV, which includes the galleries and gardens, is $10 and $8 for youth and seniors. Admission is always free to MSV Members and children age 12 and under. The Glen Burnie House is closed until 2014 for a preservation project. Additional information is available at www.theMSV.org or by calling 540-662-1473, ext. 235.