Robert M. Grey, Mr. Brooks, and Thomas Barbour gathering papayas at the Harvard Botanical Garden, Soledad, Cuba

Robert M. Grey, Mr. Brooks, and Thomas Barbour gathering papayas at the Harvard Botanical Garden, Soledad, Cuba

Botanical gardens--Photographs.

Cienfuegos (Cuba)--Photographs.

Harvard Botanical Garden (Cienfuegos, Cuba)--Photographs.

On 31 March 1924, botanist and plant explorer Dr. David Fairchild snapped this photograph of fellow botanists Robert M. Grey and Thomas Barbour picking papayas with a worker at the Harvard Botanical Station gardens. The Station, located on the E. Atkins & Co. sugar plantation in Cienfuegos, Cuba, boasted a unique collection of tropical flora, with thousands of species of plants that Fairchild photographed and researched during his visit. The resulting photographs are mostly rich, detailed studies of the garden's plant life, but occasionally, Fairchild also captured the daily activities of life on the plantation. In this rare, candid moment, he caught his colleagues hamming it up for the camera as they picked fruit for the plantation's April Fool's Day festival. From the Atkins family photographs, Photo. 37.389

David Fairchild

Massachusetts Historical Society, www.masshist.org

31-Mar-24

http://www.masshist.org/legal/rights.cfm

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