Vacant Lot Gardening

Agriculture of New York, Part 5, Volume 2, Ebenezer Emmons, Albany, 1846-54

Potatoes played an important part in a little known chapter in the history of American kitchen gardening. In 1894, the worst economic depression of the 19th century hit, with unemployment in the nation's cities reaching 35 per cent. In an effort to help the unemployed help themselves, Mayor Hazen Pingree of Detroit (later known as "Potato" Pingree) had 430 acres of vacant land in the city plowed and allotted to almost 1000 families in need. At season's end, these urban gardeners harvested 40,000 bushels of potatoes as well as immense yields of beans, squash, pumpkins, pride and good will.

The Detroit plan quickly spread. In 1896, twenty cities and towns became converts to Pingree's self-help program for the unemployed. When full employment returned, most cities, with the exception of Philadelphia, dropped this plan. Philadelphia's municipal leadership continued to utilize vacant lot gardening to assist the old, the weak and the partially disabled who could find no place in the industrial system even in prosperous times.