Ellen Biddle Shipman (1869–1950) was an American

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 landscape architect

Landscape architect

A landscape architect is a person involved in the planning, design and sometimes direction of a landscape, garden, or distinct space. The professional practice is known as landscape architecture....

 known for her formal gardens and lush planting style.

Born in Philadelphia, she spent her childhood in Texas

Texas

Texas is the second largest U.S. state by both area and population, and the largest state by area in the contiguous United States.The name, based on the Caddo word "Tejas" meaning "friends" or "allies", was applied by the Spanish to the Caddo themselves and to the region of their settlement in...

 and the Arizona territory

Arizona Territory

The Territory of Arizona was an organized incorporated territory of the United States that existed from February 24, 1863 until February 14, 1912, when it was admitted to the Union as the 48th state....

. Her father, Colonel James Biddle

James Biddle

James Biddle , of the Biddle family, brother of financier Nicholas Biddle and nephew of Captain Nicholas Biddle, was an American commodore. His flagship was USS Columbus.-Education and early career:...

, was a career Army

United States Army

The United States Army is the main branch of the United States Armed Forces responsible for land-based military operations. It is the largest and oldest established branch of the U.S. military, and is one of seven U.S. uniformed services...

 officer, stationed on the western frontier. When the safety of his family was threatened, he had them move to the McGowan farm in Elizabeth, New Jersey

Elizabeth, New Jersey

Elizabeth is a city in Union County, New Jersey, United States. As of the 2010 United States Census, the city had a total population of 124,969, retaining its ranking as New Jersey's fourth largest city with an increase of 4,401 residents from its 2000 Census population of 120,568...

. In these early years she would begin to associate safety with the natural beauty on the farm.

Education

She attended boarding school in Baltimore, Maryland, where her interests in the arts emerged in her daydreams and doodles in her notebook. By her twenties she had already started drawing garden designs.

When she halfheartedly entered the Harvard annex

Radcliffe College

Radcliffe College was a women's liberal arts college in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and was the coordinate college for Harvard University. It was also one of the Seven Sisters colleges. Radcliffe College conferred joint Harvard-Radcliffe diplomas beginning in 1963 and a formal merger agreement with...

, Shipman became distracted by a playwright

Playwright

A playwright, also called a dramatist, is a person who writes plays.The term is not a variant spelling of "playwrite", but something quite distinct: the word wright is an archaic English term for a craftsman or builder...

 attending Harvard named Louis Shipman. They left school after one year, married, and moved to Plainfield, New Hampshire

Plainfield, New Hampshire

Plainfield is a town in Sullivan County, New Hampshire, United States. As of the 2010 census, the town had a total population of 2,364. The town is home to the Helen Woodruff Smith Bird Sanctuary and Annie Duncan State Forest....

, attracted by the nearby Cornish Art Colony

Cornish Art Colony

The Cornish Art Colony was a popular art colony centered in Cornish, New Hampshire from about 1895 through the years of World War I. Attracted by the natural beauty of the area, about 100 artists, sculptors, writers, designers, and politicians lived there either full time or during the summer...

, which included Maxfield Parrish

Maxfield Parrish

Maxfield Parrish was an American painter and illustrator active in the first half of the twentieth century. He is known for his distinctive saturated hues and idealized neo-classical imagery.-Life:...

 and Augustus Saint-Gaudens

Augustus Saint-Gaudens

Augustus Saint-Gaudens was the Irish-born American sculptor of the Beaux-Arts generation who most embodied the ideals of the "American Renaissance"...

.

The colony is said to have been landscaped by artists who were not by any means landscape architects. However, through their artistically trained eyes and amazing awareness for the aesthetically calming, they were able to create lush surroundings by keeping to the simple geometrical shapes of the colonial garden. This was the style that Shipman took strongly to and with it created her own style – a style which did not go unnoticed.

Collaboration

Shipman's colleague, Charles A. Platt

Charles A. Platt

Charles Adams Platt was a prominent artist, landscape gardener, landscape designer, and architect of the "American Renaissance" movement. His garden designs complemented his domestic architecture.-Early career:...

, was an artist and architect known for his book about Italian gardens. Platt recognized Shipman's talents. He did not know much about horticulture

Horticulture

Horticulture is the industry and science of plant cultivation including the process of preparing soil for the planting of seeds, tubers, or cuttings. Horticulturists work and conduct research in the disciplines of plant propagation and cultivation, crop production, plant breeding and genetic...

, but was highly respected and thought of as “the man who could design both house and garden for a country estate”, for he had recently made a trip to Italy and wrote a book about the gardens there.

When the Shipmans divorced in 1910, Ellen Shipman, with the help of Platt, was well on her way to establishing herself as a talented garden designer nationwide. She and Platt played off of their mutual need for the other. Platt needed Ellen for her knowledge of horticulture and Ellen needed Platt for his knowledge of drafting and design. Shipman was also heavily influenced by Gertrude Jekyll and her brilliant use of borders as well as her memories of her grandparents’ farm. By 1920 she was completely independent, though she continued to collaborate with him on his residential projects.

Among the earliest collaborations with Platt, in 1913, was the Cooperstown, New York

Cooperstown, New York

Cooperstown is a village in Otsego County, New York, USA. It is located in the Town of Otsego. The population was estimated to be 1,852 at the 2010 census.The Village of Cooperstown is the county seat of Otsego County, New York...

 estate of Fynmere, owned by the Cooper family on the edge of the village. Descendants of William Cooper

William Cooper (judge)

William Cooper was the founder of Cooperstown, New York and father of writer James Fenimore Cooper, who apparently used his father as the pattern for the Judge Marmaduke Temple character in his book The Pioneers....

 and his son, the famed novelist James Fenimore Cooper

James Fenimore Cooper

James Fenimore Cooper was a prolific and popular American writer of the early 19th century. He is best remembered as a novelist who wrote numerous sea-stories and the historical novels known as the Leatherstocking Tales, featuring frontiersman Natty Bumppo...

, this project provided significant visibility for Shipman. While the stone mansion was demolished in 1979, a few elements of the landscape work survive. The Cooper family was impressed enough to award her the landscape work for the adjoining estate of Heathcote

Heathcote

-Places:in Australia*Heathcote, New South Wales, a suburb of Sydney**Electoral district of Heathcote, a seat in the New South Wales Legislative Assembly**Heathcote National Park*Heathcote, Victoria**Heathcote-Graytown National Park*Heathcote Junction, Victoria...

, which is extant today in private hands. Her other gardens include Bayou Bend Gardens, Longue Vue Gardens

Longue Vue House and Gardens

Longue Vue House and Gardens, also known as Longue Vue, is a Classical Revival mansion and garden located at 7 Bamboo Road, New Orleans, Louisiana, in the United States. It is open to the public Tuesdays to Sundays; an admission fee is charged....

, Stan Hywet Gardens, the Graycliff

Graycliff

The Graycliff estate was designed by Frank Lloyd Wright and was built between 1926 and 1931. It is located about 20 minutes south of downtown Buffalo, New York, at 6472 Old Lake Shore Road in Derby, New York...

 Estate (now under restoration), Stranahan Estate (also under reconstruction), and Duke University

Duke University

Duke University is a private research university located in Durham, North Carolina, United States. Founded by Methodists and Quakers in the present day town of Trinity in 1838, the school moved to Durham in 1892. In 1924, tobacco industrialist James B...

's Sarah P. Duke Gardens

Sarah P. Duke Gardens

The Sarah P. Duke Gardens consist of approximately 55 acres of landscaped and wooded areas at Duke University. There are five miles of allées, walks, and pathways throughout the gardens...

, often named one of her finest works. The gardens of Manhattan's Astor Court Building

Astor Court Building

The Astor Court building is an apartment house in New York City. It is located on the Upper West Side on Broadway between 89th Street and 90th Street. It was designed by architect Charles A. Platt for developer Vincent Astor....

 were another Pratt/Shipman collaboration.

Shipman created her own residential gardens all over the United States, collaborating with many architects. Her planting plans softened the bones of geometric architecture with planting designs that were muscular enough to speak for themselves. She once said, "Remember that the design of your place is its skeleton upon which you will later plant to make your picture. Keep that skeleton as simple as possible."

Public recognition and solo work

Shipman's gardens often appeared in magazines, including House Beautiful

House Beautiful

House Beautiful is an interior decorating magazine that focuses on decorating and the domestic arts. First published in 1896, it is currently published by the Hearst Corporation, who purchased it in 1934...

. In 1933, House & Garden

House & Garden (magazine)

House & Garden was an American shelter magazine published by Condé Nast Publications that focused on interior design, entertaining, and gardening....

named her the "Dean of Women Landscape Architects". She lectured widely, and completed over 400 projects. Her archives are at Cornell University

Cornell University

Cornell University is an Ivy League university located in Ithaca, New York, United States. It is a private land-grant university, receiving annual funding from the State of New York for certain educational missions...

. Because much of her work includes labor-intensive plantings and borders, many have not survived.

However, it was because of these borders that she was able to connect with her female clientele. Her intent was to provide privacy and a place for interaction with the surroundings. Women found the gardens provided familiarity and comfort when life was otherwise too chaotic.

It is said that throughout the 40 years she practiced landscape architecture, Shipman would only hire graduates from Lowthorpe School of Landscape Architecture

Lowthorpe School of Landscape Architecture

Lowthorpe School of Architecture in Groton, Massachusetts was founded in 1901 for women to be trained in landscape architecture and horticulture: the college was one of the first in the world to open the profession to women. By the 1920s it had of land with greenhouses and gardens...

, Gardening, and Horticulture for Women. Although it is not thoroughly understood why this was her hiring practice, it is widely believed that because of the time, women were not being given apprenticeships in male offices.