New online collection and book features rare garden images (Library of Congress)

The Library of Congress has released online the digital images of a rare collection of more than 1,000 hand-colored, glass-plate lantern slides of American gardens taken a century ago by one of the first professional female photographers to achieve international prominence, Frances Benjamin Johnston. A selection of 250 color images can be seen in a new book by house and garden historian Sam Watters titled "Gardens for a Beautiful America, 1895-1935: Photographs by Frances Benjamin Johnston." The book, in its preface, is described as "sumptuous and scholarly," providing "a time machine and a magic carpet capable of transporting us back to a lost, golden age in the development of the American garden." The Library is unveiling the online images as a complement to the book, which was published this month by Acanthus Press in association with the Library