research

In my dissertation and current research, described below, I work across art and architectural history, medieval studies, and garden and landscape studies.

View from within the Norman Court in the Bishop’s Garden, looking southwest. July 27, 2022.

Dissertation, in progress:

“Rescued for America”: Medieval Fragments and the Construction of National Identity in the Bishop’s Garden of Washington National Cathedral, 1900–1940

History of Art and Architecture, University of Pittsburgh

My dissertation studies the unique collection of medieval architectural elements enclosed within the Bishop’s Garden of Washington National Cathedral, which was envisioned as a “medieval” garden by Florence Brown Bratenahl, its principal designer, and George Grey Barnard, the American collector and dealer of medieval European art. From 1926–1929, Bratenahl and All Hallows Guild, the gardens and grounds guild of Washington National Cathedral, acquired eleven fragments from Barnard and placed them within the Bishop’s Garden to evoke a medieval space, spiritual in nature and in keeping with the cathedral’s Gothic architectural style. To further develop the garden, they transplanted plants and paving stones from England, the eastern Mediterranean, and early American estates in Maryland and Virginia associated with George Washington and the Lee family. Elements of garden design drawn from medieval European sources and the creation of historicizing structures like the Norman Court also form the garden.

Building on my archival research and on-site study, I consider how the presence of these varied materials and historical associations complicates an understanding of the Bishop’s Garden as “medieval” and suggests that the garden functions in part to make claims about United States national identity in the nation’s capital, from the garden’s formation in the 1920s to the present.