When we think about Victorian factories, ‘Dark Satanic Mills’ might spring to mind – images of blackened buildings and exhausted, exploited workers struggling in unhealthy and ungodly conditions. But for some employees this image was far from the truth, and this is the subject of ‘The Factory in a Garden’ which traces the history of a factory gardens movement from its late-eighteenth century beginnings in Britain to its twenty-first century equivalent in Google’s vegetable gardens at their headquarters in California. The book is the first study of its kind examining the development of parks, gardens, and outdoor leisure facilities for factories in Britain and America as a model for the reshaping of the corporate environment in the twenty-first century. This is also the first book to give a comprehensive account of the contribution of gardens, gardening and recreation to the history of responsible capitalism and ethical working practices.
Table of Content
Introduction
1. ‘The pleasant manufactory’
2. From model factory to modern factory
3. ‘The Factory in a Garden’/’The Garden in a Factory’
4. ‘Happy healthy workers are the world’s best’: factory landscapes, leisure and the model employee
5. Designing the company Arcadia
6. ‘The Most Beautiful Factory in the World’: the power of the garden image
7. Factory gardens and parks: profits or perks?
8. From factory gardens to ‘connected gardens’
Select gazetteer: company gardens and parks, c.1750-c.1960 and offices and office parks with significant landscaping, 1970-2015
Index
About the author
Helena Chance is Reader in History and Theory of Design at Buckinghamshire New University
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