Join us for this illustrated lecture by historian Victoria Johnson featuring her latest book, American Eden, which both the Wall Street Journal and Ron Chernow (Alexander Hamilton) have called “captivating.”

American Eden was a finalist for the 2018 National Book Award in Nonfiction, the 2018 Los Angeles Times Book Prize in Biography, and the 2019 Pulitzer Prize in History. It was also a New York Times Notable Book of 2018.

When Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr met on a dueling ground in July 1804, they chose the same attending physician: David Hosack. Family doctor and friend to both men, Hosack is today a shadowy figure at the edge of a famous duel, the great achievements of his life forgotten.

But in 1801, on twenty acres of Manhattan farmland, Hosack founded the first public botanical garden in the new nation, amassing a spectacular collection of medicinal, agricultural, and ornamental plants that brought him worldwide praise from the likes of Thomas Jefferson, Sir Joseph Banks, and Alexander von Humboldt. In an age of rampant epidemics and dangerous treatments, Hosack used his pioneering institution to train the next generation of American doctors and naturalists and to conduct some of the first pharmacological research in the United States.

In this talk, Victoria Johnson takes us back to old New York, when the nation’s founders strolled the city sidewalks and most of Manhattan was a green island.

This event is co-sponsored by the Marin Garden Club