George A. Parker Photograph Album Finding Aid : Special Collections and University Archives, UMass Amherst Libraries

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A prominent member of the Massachusetts Agricultural College Class of 1876, George A. Parker (1853-1926) began a career in landscape gardening and park development shortly after graduation. As Superintendent of Parks in Hartford, Conn., at the turn of the twentieth century he helped to develop Colt Park and a number of smaller properties that turned the city into a model for New England. He resigned from his post in January 1926 and died later that year from heart disease.

The Parker Album is a more extensive version of the standard class album for 1876, featuring not only albumen portraits of faculty and students mounted on thick stock, but almost fifty views of campus. Among these are uncommon images of the major academic buildings, the chapel, and hash house, but also interior and exterior shots of buildings on campus, including the Botanical Museum and the Durfee greenhouses, and images of students in military drill. All photographs were taken by John L. Lovell of Amherst.

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Mass Agricultural College (1863-1931)

Background on George A. Parker

An image of: The giant squash — The giant squash

A member of the sixth graduating class at Massachusetts Agricultural College, George Amos Parker enjoyed a distinguished career in landscape gardening and park management. Born in Fitzwilliam, N.H., on April 28, 1853, and graduating from Mass. Agricultural College in 1876, Parker rose through a succession of positions as gardener, including stints as head gardener at Vassar College (1876-1879), Superintendent of the Cliffdale estate in Poughkeepsie, N.Y. (1879-1882), and Superintendent of Ophir Farm in White Plains, NY (1882), which was considered one of the premier model farms in the nation.

After working in private practice as a landscape gardener in Baltimore and Cleveland (1882-1884) and at the Old Colony Railroad, Parker landed in Hartford, Conn., where he spent decades as Director of Keney Park and later as Superintendent of Public Parks and City Forester. His efforts in developing Colt Park, in particular, and several smaller properties transformed the city into a model for New England.

A member of the Massachusetts Horticultural Society and many other professional organizations, Parker became a prominent figure in promoting public parks. He was a noted collector of literature on the subject, amassing what was cited by Who's Who in New England (1916) as the largest collection of its kind in the world. Parker married Jannie Waterman Richmond at Chesterfield, Mass., on Dec. 6, 1876, with whom he had two sons. He died in Halifax, Mass., in 1926.

Scope of collection

Assembled for George A. Parker as he approached graduation from Massachusetts Agricultural College in 1876, this photograph album is an exceptional example of the genre and superb visual documentation of the early campus at the college. Consisting of ninety albumen prints mounted on card stock, all by local Amherst photographer John L. Lovell, the album contains signed portraits of all members of the faculty and graduating class wedded to an almost equal number of views of the buildings and landscape at Mass Aggie at a time when the infrastructure was still rudimentary. Among the images are rare interior views of South College and the Chemistry Building (also known as College Hall), shots of the graduating class in military gear, and two images William Smith Clark's famed squash experiment, in which he attempted to measure the force exerted by a growing vegetable.