Did George Washington have the first Lawn?

AEM8333040063

⏰Wed, 09/11 20:41PM · 18mins

Transcript

And now it’s time for who’s smarted. Psst. Hey, smarty pants! Question. Do you live in a house? And if you do, does that house have a patch of grass, aka a lawn, in front of it? Or behind it? Or both?

If so, have you ever wondered, what’s the purpose of lawns? After all, isn’t there something more interesting you could put there?

Now wait just a second. If people didn’t have lawns, I’d be out of a job.

And, um…

Who are you? Larry the Lawn Mower. And this is my turf, literally. I see.

But I also don’t see. What’s the point of lawns? I mean, wouldn’t it be more fun if all this flat green space was filled with flowers, or a vegetable garden, or a hedge?

A hedge maze? A hedge maze? Haha, no thanks. You could get lost. Plus, I’m claustrophobic. It’s bad enough being cooped up in a garage all winter. Anyway, there’s lots of reasons people have lawns. Let’s take a little trip to learn more.

Hop on!

Well, you are a riding mower. Here goes. Whoa! Seems like I’m not the only one with a time travel app. Where are we? And-

When are we? We’re in England in the 16th century and you’re riding on one of the first ever lawns. Isn’t she a beaut?

To be honest, I’m more impressed by the cool castle over there.

That castle is why people have lawns in the first place. Well, not that specific castle, castles in general. You see, castles belong to royalty, and they had lots of land surrounding their castles. I’m talking acres and acres.

But if all that land was filled with trees and gardens and hedge mazes, you wouldn’t be able to see the enemies approaching. Enemies? You know, soldiers, armies, surprise attacks, that kind of thing.

So all the land around the castles was kept nice and trimmed and free of stuff, so you could have an unobstructed view of your whole property and see someone coming. That’s how and why lawns were born.

Makes sense. Um, what’s that? Sounds like an approaching army. Hey, get off my lawn!

Yeah, they’re not stopping. We may want to time travel out of here, and while we’re at it, let’s learn how lawns went from castles to homes, who had the first lawn in America, and why the grass is always greener on the other side.

It’s time for another whiff of Science and History on…

Who’s smart and who’s smarted? Who’s smart? Is it you? Is it me? Is it science or history? Listen up!

Everyone, we make smarting lots of fun on who’s smarted. It’s the convenient way for smarty parents like you to raise financially savvy smarty parents, and navigate life together. Sign up for Greenlight today and get your first month free when you go to greenlight .com backslash smarted.

That’s greenlight .com backslash smarted to try greenlight for free. I guess we’re not in England anymore.

Nope, we’re back in the U .S. of A, in the 1700s. So we traveled forward about 200 years. Exactly. Now you might be wondering, if lawns were invented for castles in 16th century Europe, why are we now in 18th century America?

And whose property are we now trespassing on?

a trespassing? Get off me!

Off of my lawn! Relax! They’ll never catch us. Now, does this big old house look familiar to you?

It does look familiar. Hmm, wait a second, I know. This is Mount Vernon. Quick, smarty pants, which U .S. president built and resided at Mount Vernon? Did you say George Washington, the first American president?

If so, congrats.

Yup, this old home was George’s alright, but check out the lawn, it’s humongous. More importantly, this was one of the first places in the USA to have a lawn.

Ah, so the father of the country is also the father of the country’s lawns.

Yep, and let me tell ya, when Washington put a lot around his house, all his fancy pants rich friends did too. Like Thomas Jefferson at his Monticello estate.

Interesting. Since lawns were initially only found around castles in Europe, and then the first lawns in America were put down by rich landowners, it’s almost as if you’re saying they were trying to copy royalty.

Not almost. That’s exactly what I’m saying. It took a long time for lawns to trickle down to average folks with average homes. Like you. No offense.

None taken. But if only rich people with big houses had lawns, what did everyone else have?

Everyone else had to be practical. What little land they had was taken up with fruit and vegetable garden so they could grow food to eat. Huh. Makes sense. Hey! You! Get off of my lawn!

Yikes! We better go. Quick! Get on!

Welcome to the 1800s. Let me tell you, the 19th century was huge for lawns. It was also when one of the greatest inventions of all time was introduced.

The raincoat.

That too, but no the lawnmower I Was invented in 1830

Pop Quiz Smarties was the first ever lawnmower adapted from A, a hay baler, B, a carpet cutter, or C, a beard trimmer. If you guessed B, carpet cutter, you got it. Although the inventor of the lawnmower did have beard in his name, in 1830 a British engineer named Edwin Beard Budding saw a cloth cutting machine with a bladed cylinder used for trimming and smoothing out carpets.

He figured the same basic principle would work on grass.

What’s really cool is that the way today’s modern mowers work isn’t so different than the original 1830 model.

If it ain’t broke, why fix it? Besides the invention of the lawnmower, why else was the 19th century such a big deal for lawns?

Well, in the 1800s, you started seeing more lawns and more places, and I’m not talking people’s houses.

Mmm, smarty pants. Can you think of a few places you might see lawns that aren’t homes? Go ahead, shout some out.

If you said parks and golf courses, you’re right. People take it for granted today, but in the 1800s, it was new and unusual to see big swaths of lawn in public places for no other reason than fun, leisure, and enjoyment.

Know what I’m saying?

Absolutely. I love a nice picnic in the park.

And lots of big, long -covered American parks built in the 1800s are still around today. One in particular is very famous. You might even say it’s the most famous park in the world!

Ooh, any ideas what park that is, smarty pants? Or where it’s located? I’ll give you a hint. The famous park is centrally located in a city known for pizza, tall buildings, and more pizza. If you know it, shout it out.

Are you shouting Central Park in New York City?

It’s every lawnmower’s dream to cut the grass in Central Park’s Great Lawn.

No doubt. Central Park is 843 acres. That’s about 638 football fields. It’s massive!

Yankee Stadium wouldn’t be too bad either.

Right, so is this when everyone started getting lawns for their homes?

No, those big parks were where most people got to experience lawns for the first time. But residential lawns were still pretty much only for rich folks, cause think about it, you still needed a big house with space around it to have a lawn.

True. So then, what was it?

Well, the other lawn -tastic thing that happened in America in the 1800s was the opening of the first golf course in New York in 1887. Once that happened, Americans became hooked on golf. The sport was very popular, and huge lawn -covered golf courses started springing up all over the place.

And so did more and more public parks. For the first time ever, the country was littered with lawns. I love it. Me too. More lawns means more lawn mowers. As lawns got more popular, people wanted to replicate the feeling of parks around their own homes.

So, by the early 1900s, more and more houses had lawns. Front lawns, to be exact. The fruit and vegetable gardens people used to grow food started moving to the back of the house.

Oh, which is how we got the backyard.

Yep, but one very interesting thing happened to push lawns over the edge, and make them popular with pretty much everyone.

Ooh, we’ll find out what that was right after this quick break. Hey, parents. Trusty here. I love making it easy for people to learn new things. Shocker, right? So when my friend told me he was about to spend almost $1 ,000 on language lessons to get ready for his trip to Spain, I said, hold on there.

Why don’t you try using the language learning app Babble? I told him he’ll save enough money to practically pay for his plane ticket. Less than a month later, he was ordering tapas and sangria like a Barcelona native and telling me, gracias, trusty.

Babble’s 10 minute lessons designed by over 200 language experts fit perfectly into his busy schedule. Their speech recognition technology even helped him nail that tricky Spanish R. R. R. Oof, I need to use Babble.

And so do you. It’s awesome. Choose from 14 award -winning language courses, all backed by a 20 day money back guarantee. I love Babble so much that they’ve agreed to make an exclusive offer for our listeners.

Get up to 60% off your Babble subscription at B A B B E L dot com slash smarted. That’s babble .com slash smarted rules and restrictions may apply. Start your language journey today. Hey, smarty parents.

I know the struggle of wanting to create the best future for the children in your life. That’s why I’m thrilled to share my experience with I X L learning. Recently, the eight year old child of one of our main who smarted writers started struggling with math.

They tried everything and felt helpless. Then I told them about our partner, I Excel, and it changed everything. I Excel is an online learning program that covers math, language arts, science and social studies from pre -K to 12th grade.

What sets it apart is how it adapts to each child’s needs. His daughter loves the positive feedback and fun challenges. And the best part, I Excel’s research backed approach has made a world of difference in her confidence and her grades.

It’s like having a personal tutor, but at a fraction of the cost. A month of I Excel costs less than one hour with a tutor, even before our smarty family, 20% discount. Don’t let your child fall behind.

Join the millions of families benefiting from I Excel. Visit I Excel .com slash smarted and get 20% off your membership. That’s I Excel .com slash smarted for 20% off. Give your child the gift of learning with I Excel.

Hey there, trusty here. This episode is brought to you by Squarespace, the all in one website platform that’s revolutionizing how we create our online presence. Recently, a friend of mine who does nutrition coaching was stressing out over needing to set up a website.

She couldn’t afford a web designer and had no idea how to code. I said, stop stressing, start Squarespacing. You should have seen her face light up when I showed her Squarespace’s new blueprint AI. It’s like having a personal web designer in your pocket.

Sarah chose a layout and style that she liked and boom, a stunning unique website that perfectly captured her vibe. But the best part is that Squarespace isn’t just a pretty face. Their integrated search tools are helping Sarah get discovered by clients all over the world.

And the Squarespace site even makes it easy to sell courses and coaching plans right from the site. Want to bring your passion to life online? Head to squarespace .com for a free trial. And when you’re ready to launch, go to squarespace .com backslash smarted to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain.

Trust me, it’s a game changer. Now back to who’s smarted. Okay, we’ve learned how parks and golf courses introduced lawns to the general public in America, but I still don’t get how and why today. Nearly every house has a lawn.

When did that happen?

Remember Central Park? Yeah? Well, the fellow that designed Central Park, Frederick Law Olmsted, also designed many of America’s first suburbs. And those first suburbs were very green and parkish. Which meant everyone had their own front lawn.

Of course, these suburbs were still pretty fancy schmancy. After World War II, suburbs as we know them today, really took off.

Hey, smarty pants, why do you think suburbs became so popular after World War II? Was it A, because more people were buying homes? B, families grew after the war? Or C, folks just wanted to hang out at home?

Actually, all three are correct. After the war, soldiers returned home to a much richer country than they left behind. Folks were spending money on house things like fridges, ovens, and houses themselves.

Families grew, suburbs became more affordable, and everyone wanted to hang out in and around their house.

And what did all these fabulous new houses have? Lawns? You got it. In post -war America, everyone finally had a lawn. And get this, a whole lawn culture took off, having the best, neatest, greenest lawn and your block became a status symbol.

People were competing with their neighbors over it.

Oh, kind of like how people copied George Washington, who copied European royalty.

Yep.

Smarty pants, true or false? It’s better to have a shortcut lawn. The answer is surprisingly.

False. A short lawn might look nice, but a higher lawn is better at keeping out weeds. So weed mowers recommend mowing your lawn at the highest you can tolerate. But remember, the grass will always be greener on the other side.

Smarty Pants, do you know what that saying means? It means people are often envious of what someone else has compared to what they have. Who knew it originated from actual lawn jealousy? Personally, I’d be more jealous if I saw someone with a hedge maze.

Enough with the hedge -mays!

Sorry, I know you get claustrophobic.

You do bring up a good point though in some areas of the country people are encouraged to put something other than a lawn in front of their house

Any guesses why, smarty pants? Lawns require a lot of watering, and there are places where droughts are common, like California, where you’re only allowed to water your lawn on certain days at certain times.

And if you use too much water, you can be fined. Whoa.

In desert climates, a lot of people have drought -resistant plants instead of lawns. Things like cacti and succulents that need very little water.

Good for the environment.

But bad for lawnmowers.

I wouldn’t worry, Larry. I don’t think lawns are going anywhere anytime soon. They’re way too popular. Say, wanna play some lawn games? Croquet? Lawn bowling?

You’re on, trusty. Hey, you. Get off of me!

My lawn. Yikes, we should probably do this in the park. Sorry, Mr. Washington. A super shout out to Super Smarty Jameson in Scottsdale, Arizona. You told us you like science and history, which means Who Smarted is the perfect podcast for you.

We’re sure glad to have you listening, learning and laughing with me and all your smarty friends. This episode lawns was written by Phil Jeremy and voiced by Mike Cravitti, Max Kamaski and Jerry Colburn.

Technical direction and sound designed by Josh Hahn. Who Smarted is recorded and mixed at the Relic Room Studios. Our associate producer is Max Kamaski. The theme song is by Brian Suarez with lyrics written and performed by Adam Tex Davis.

Who Smarted was created and produced by Adam Tex Davis and Jerry Colburn. This has been an Atomic Entertainment production.

Who’s smarted? Star Glove!

Recent Episodes