The Pennsylvania School of Horticulture for Women
Upper Dublin Township, Montgomery County, Pennsylvania
Marker Inscription
This school was among the first in the nation to educate women for careers in horticulture and agriculture. It was founded in 1910 on this site by Jane Bowne Haines and a "congress of women." Three years later the Woman's National Farm and Garden Association originated here at a meeting sponsored by the school. During WWI & WWII PSHW trained women to grow and preserve food for the war effort. In 1958, PSHW merged with Temple University.
Erected by Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission
The Story
Founded in 1910 by Jane Bowne Haines and a "congress of women," this school was among the first in the nation to train women for professional careers in horticulture and agriculture. It became a seedbed for organized women's work in the field, hosting the founding of the Woman's National Farm and Garden Association in 1913. During both world wars its students taught women to grow and preserve food for the war effort before the school merged with Temple University in 1958.
Why it matters
The school opened a professional path in the land-based sciences to women decades before such opportunities were common, expanding the horizons of American women's education and work.
The story behind this marker
AI contextThe era
In the early twentieth century, American women were pressing at the boundaries of what education and work could offer them. It was the Progressive Era, a time of reform and rising ambition, yet the doors to professional training in most fields still stood only partly open to women. The idea that a woman might pursue a serious career in horticulture or agriculture — the science of growing things, managed as a profession — was, in 1910, genuinely new.
The land itself made a fitting classroom. In the countryside of Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, there was room to plant, to cultivate, and to learn by doing. Here a school could teach not only from books but from the soil, giving women hands-on command of skills long treated as either humble domestic work or the province of men.
Into that moment stepped a group determined to build something lasting. What they founded on this site would help redefine where a woman's education could lead — and it would prove its worth, remarkably, in two world wars still to come.
People & events
The school was founded in 1910 by Jane Bowne Haines, together with what the marker memorably calls a "congress of women" — a phrase that captures both the collective spirit of the effort and its seriousness of purpose. This was not a casual venture but a deliberate act of institution-building, aimed at training women for professional careers in horticulture and agriculture.
The school quickly became more than a place of instruction; it became a seedbed for organized action. Just three years after its founding, in 1913, the Woman's National Farm and Garden Association originated here, at a meeting the school sponsored. From a single campus, in other words, grew a national network of women committed to work on the land.
When the country went to war, the school answered the call. As the marker records, during both World War I and World War II it trained women to grow and preserve food for the war effort — turning its expertise toward the urgent national task of feeding a nation at war. That chapter of practical service lasted until 1958, when the school merged with Temple University, folding its mission into a larger institution.
Its place in the American story
This school opened a professional path in the land-based sciences to women decades before such opportunities were common. In doing so it enlarged the very idea of what American women could study and do for a living — claiming ground in horticulture and agriculture at a time when few institutions would.
Its influence rippled outward. By hosting the founding of the Woman's National Farm and Garden Association, the school helped knit individual ambition into a national movement, connecting women across the country who shared a commitment to growing and stewarding the land. That is the mark of an institution that shaped not just its own students but a wider cause.
And in wartime, the school's work took on national weight. Teaching women to grow and preserve food during two world wars linked this Pennsylvania campus directly to the country's survival and resolve. It is a vivid example of how women's expanding roles in education and work translated, in moments of crisis, into service the whole nation depended upon.
If you visit
To visit this site in Upper Dublin Township is to stand where a genuinely pioneering idea took root — the notion that women belonged in the professional study of horticulture and agriculture, and that the proof would grow, literally, from the ground up. Let the marker carry you back to 1910 and the "congress of women" who chose this place to begin.
As you take in the surroundings, imagine the land as a working classroom: gardens and plots where students learned by planting and tending, and where, in wartime, women were taught to raise and preserve the food a nation needed. The setting invites you to picture education as something done with the hands as much as the head.
This is a rewarding stop for anyone drawn to women's history or to the quiet, determined institutions that widened American life. It fits gracefully into a road trip through the Montgomery County countryside — a reminder that some of the most consequential change begins not with fanfare, but with a group of resolute people, a piece of good land, and a new idea about who gets to learn.
Written by AI to add context, grounded in the marker’s inscription and the historical record. The inscription above is the original, unaltered text.
Plan your visit
NearbyMake a day of it — museums, food, and places to stay near this marker.
Museums & culture
- National Constitution Center14.7 mi away · 525 Arch Street, Philadelphia, PA
- African American Museum in Philadelphia14.7 mi away · 701 Arch Street, Philadelphia, PA
- Betsy Ross House14.9 mi away · 239 Arch Street, Philadelphia, PA
- Independence Visitor Center14.9 mi away · 599 Market Street, Philadelphia, PA
- Illadelph Glass Gallery14.9 mi away · 68 North 2nd Street, Philadelphia, PA
- Muse Gallery14.9 mi away · 52 North 2nd Street, Philadelphia, PA
Attractions
- Discovery Center at East Park Reservoir12.5 mi away
- Pennsylvania Railroad, Connecting Railway Bridge13.0 mi away
- Harbison's Dairy Milk Bottle13.0 mi away
- Philadelphia Zoo13.3 mi away
- Rocky Steps13.8 mi away
- Philly Gun Range14.1 mi away · North Percy Street
Food & drink
- Independence Mall Cafe14.9 mi away · 50 North Independence Mall East, Philadelphia
- Burger King14.9 mi away
- Dunkin'14.9 mi away · 634 Market Street, Philadelphia, PA
- La Colombe Coffee Roasters14.9 mi away
- Philly Pretzel Factory15.0 mi away
- Time & Peace15.0 mi away · 36 South 7th Street, Philadelphia, PA
Places to stay
- Days Inn Philadelphia Convention Center - Philadelphia14.5 mi away · 1227 Race Street, Philadelphia, PA
- Four Points by Sheraton Philadelphia City Center14.5 mi away · 1201 Race Street, Philadelphia
- Clarion Suites Philadelphia14.6 mi away · 1010 Race Street, Philadelphia
- Sleep Inn Center City14.6 mi away · 1020 Cherry Street, Philadelphia, PA
- Home2 Suites by Hilton Philadelphia - Convention Center, PA14.7 mi away · 1200 Arch Street, Philadelphia, PA
- The Notary Hotel14.7 mi away · 21 North Juniper Street, Philadelphia
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Related people
- · Jane Bowne Haines
Themes & tags
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