Growing America

July 4 through October 18, 2026

Mertz Library: Tuesdays through Fridays; Barnsley Beds: Tuesdays through Sundays

Celebrate America’s 250th anniversary at NYBG through the plants and foods that tell the stories of American history. In the Mertz Library, see historic botanical illustrations, planting ledgers, books, and cookbooks dating from the Revolutionary War to the Victory Gardens of World War II and beyond. Outside in the Barnsley Beds, see how America’s agriculture and planting habits changed over time, from Indigenous foodscapes to the Transatlantic Slave Trade, the Great Migration, and the state of food plants today.

Black and white pages of a book are shown with an open book, showing an illustration of a cabbage, with the words Burppe, Phildelphia. The book is in a display case.

In the Mertz Library

Tuesdays through Fridays; 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.

See displays from the historic Mertz Library collection spotlighting archival materials that span Revolutionary-era New York, wartime Victory Gardens, NYBG’s own role in American food culture, and the evolution of cookbooks and domestic food practices.

Highlights include the 1793 to 1796 Plantsman’s Ledger, which records plant purchases by early New Yorkers including Aaron Burr; NYBG’s World War II Victory Garden plans and photographs; Alexander Anderson’s early experimentation with plant-based food production; and 20th-century cookbooks that reflect the rise of refrigeration, supermarkets, frozen foods, and convenience cooking. A special collaboration with the George W. Bush Presidential Library and the Barack Obama Presidential Library extends the exhibition’s story to the national stage, exploring food and diplomacy, White House state dinners, and the revitalization of the White House Vegetable Garden.

An arrangement of green corn stalks under a blue sky

In the Barnsley Beds

Tuesdays through Sundays; 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.

Explore a living display of the food plants that shaped American history, and see how agriculture has shaped our landscape. Explore Indigenous agricultural innovations and food plants native to the Americas that informed our modern foodways; learn about the plants the Founding Fathers considered revolutionary; and discover the ways in which food plants and traditions brought by enslaved peoples dramatically influenced what we eat in America today.

Get a Peek at American Garden History

NYC Plantsman’s Ledger, 1793 to 1796 [manuscript]
Photograph of nurses in NYBG’s Victory Garden, 1942
Join the Victory Garden: green thumb contest. [poster] Walt Disney Productions, 1944
Challenge Coin Presidential Food Service. National Archives and Records Administration, courtesy of the George W. Bush Presidential Library
White House Glass Honey Jar and Dipper. Courtesy of the Barack Obama Presidential Library, National Archives and Records Administration.

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