Inez Harrington Whitfield (May 25, 1867 – June 26, 1951) was an educator and botanical illustrator best known for her

watercolor painting Watercolor (American English American English, sometimes called United States English or U.S. English, is the set of variety (linguistics), varieties of the English language native to the United States. English is the Languages of the U ...

s of

wildflower A wildflower (or wild flower) is a flower that grows in the wild, meaning it was not intentionally seeded or planted. The term implies that the plant probably is neither a hybrid nor a selected cultivar that is in any way different from the w ...

s native to Arkansas.

Biography

Inez Harrington Whitfield was born on May 25, 1867, to James Whitfield and Ida Doty Whitfield. She had one sibling, a sister named Erle Winfred who was born in 1873. Their mother was a direct descendent of Edward Doty, an early American colonist. The family lived in

Ilion, New York Ilion is a village in Herkimer County, New York, United States. The population was 7,790 at the 2017 census. The village is at the northern edge of the town of German Flatts, though a tiny portion is in the town of Frankfort. It is south of the ...

, where Inez received an early education before graduating from

Smith College Smith College is a Private university, private Liberal arts colleges in the United States, liberal arts Women's colleges in the United States, women's college in Northampton, Massachusetts. It was chartered in 1871 by Sophia Smith (Smith College ...

Northampton, Massachusetts The city of Northampton is the county seat of Hampshire County, Massachusetts, United States. As of the 2020 census, the population of Northampton (including its outer villages, Florence and Leeds) was 29,571. Northampton is known as an acade ...

in 1889 with a bachelor of letters degree. Inez struggled with

rheumatoid arthritis Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is a long-term autoimmune disorder that primarily affects joints. It typically results in warm, swollen, and painful joints. Pain and stiffness often worsen following rest. Most commonly, the wrist and hands are involv ...

for the majority of her life, eventually relying on a

wheelchair A wheelchair is a chair with wheels, used when walking is difficult or impossible due to illness, injury, problems related to old age, or disability. These can include spinal cord injuries ( paraplegia, hemiplegia, and quadriplegia), cerebr ...

for mobility starting in 1911. In 1901, she began regularly traveling to Hot Springs, Arkansas to take advantage of the effect the area's warmer weather and therapeutic baths had on her disability. She officially moved to Arkansas in the early 1900s and soon became a recognized figure in the community, founding the area's first Little Theater in the late 1920s. She organized the Hot Springs

Garden Club A garden club is an organized group of people with a shared interest in gardening, gardens, and plants. A flower club is a similar group with a focus on flowers. History The first and oldest organized garden club in the United States is the Ladie ...

and the Hot Springs Business and Professional Women's Club, as well as the Hot Springs branch of the

American Association of University Women The American Association of University Women (AAUW), officially founded in 1881, is a non-profit organization that advances equity for women and girls through advocacy, education, and research. The organization has a nationwide network of 170,000 ...

. The 1915 publication ''Woman's Who's Who of America'' had a brief biography on Whitfield, which pointedly included a sentence on her

anti-suffragist Anti-suffragism was a political movement composed of both men and women that began in the late 19th century in order to campaign against women's suffrage in countries such as Australia, Canada, Ireland, the United Kingdom and the United States. To ...

views. When she wasn't painting or organizing community events, Whitfield could often be found birdwatching and recording her findings with scientific meticulousness. She wrote an article detailing her backyard observations of a pair of nesting

yellow-throated vireo The yellow-throated vireo (''Vireo flavifrons'') is a small American songbird. Etymology "Vireo" is a Latin word referring to a green migratory bird, perhaps the female golden oriole, possibly the European greenfinch. The specific ''flavifrons' ...

s that was published in the journal ''

Bird-Lore ''Audubon'' is the flagship journal of the National Audubon Society. It is profusely illustrated and focuses on subjects related to nature, with a special emphasis on birds. New issues are published bi-monthly for society members. An active blo ...

'' (now known as simply '' Audubon'') in 1920. Inez Harrington Whitfield died on June 26, 1951, in Hot Springs, Arkansas at the age of 84. She is buried at Armory Hill Cemetery in her hometown of

Career

Though Whitfield received

undergraduate Undergraduate education is education conducted after secondary education and before postgraduate education. It typically includes all postsecondary programs up to the level of a bachelor's degree. For example, in the United States, an entry-lev ...

instruction in education and worked for several years as both a schoolteacher and a principal, her struggles with

forced her to leave the profession in the early 1900s. She began

in the 1930s and became well known in the Arkansas area for her accurate depictions of native plant life. In 1935, she appeared in a publication about female leaders titled ''American Women''.

Educator

After Whitfield graduated from

in 1889, she moved back to New York and began teaching at the Gardner Institute for Girls. Soon after, she left the school in favor of collaborating with her friend and colleague Caroline E. Bliss. The pair formed the Whitfield-Bliss School for Girls in

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

in late 1896, before Whitfield's move to Arkansas. The Whitfield-Bliss School for Girls, sometimes listed as the Mount Morris Park School, operated as a girls'

boarding Boarding may refer to: *Boarding, used in the sense of "room and board", i.e. lodging and meals as in a: ** Boarding house **Boarding school *Boarding (horses) (also known as a livery yard, livery stable, or boarding stable), is a stable where ho ...

and day school from 1896 until 1901 at 41. W. 124th St. in Harlem, Manhattan. The

row house In architecture and city planning, a terrace or terraced house (British English, UK) or townhouse (American English, US) is a form of medium-density housing that originated in Europe in the 16th century, whereby a row of attached dwellings party ...

had previously served as a private residence and would eventually serve as a community meeting house for several decades once the school was closed. The school was successful until Inez's arthritis forced them to close in 1901 as she sought treatment outside of the state of New York. As of 2022 the building still stands, now known as the Antioch Church of God.

Artist

In the 1930s, Inez began the project that would soon become her life's passion: painting the native wildflowers of Arkansas. By the time she died in 1951, she had painted more than five hundred original

s of wildflowers, organized according to location and blooming season. She recorded every flower's exact colors and size and properly labeled them with both their

common Common may refer to: Places * Common, a townland in County Tyrone, Northern Ireland * Boston Common, a central public park in Boston, Massachusetts * Cambridge Common, common land area in Cambridge, Massachusetts * Clapham Common, originally com ...

and Latin names. She traversed the area's many hiking trails in her wheelchair to collect the perfect flowers to paint, eventually becoming so well known that strangers would bring her plants from all over the state that they thought were particularly excellent specimens. She had an especially good relationship with many of the local Boy and

Girl Scouts Girl Guides (known as Girl Scouts in the United States and some other countries) is a worldwide movement, originally and largely still designed for girls and women only. The movement began in 1909 when girls requested to join the then-grassroot ...

, who would happily help her scavenge for the best example of a particular flower. Whitfield replanted nearly all of the flowers she used as references as soon as she was done with them. In her lifetime, Whitfield exhibited her watercolor paintings at the Rockefeller Center, the gallery at the Garden of Nations, the

University of Colorado The University of Colorado (CU) is a system of public universities in Colorado. It consists of four institutions: University of Colorado Boulder, University of Colorado Colorado Springs, University of Colorado Denver, and the University of Co ...

Boulder In geology, a boulder (or rarely bowlder) is a rock fragment with size greater than in diameter. Smaller pieces are called cobbles and pebbles. While a boulder may be small enough to move or roll manually, others are extremely massive. In c ...

, and the Hot Springs Fine Arts Center. She was given a posthumous solo exhibition at the latter in 1986 as part of Arkansas'

Sesquicentennial An anniversary is the date on which an event took place or an institution was founded in a previous year, and may also refer to the commemoration or celebration of that event. The word was first used for Catholic feasts to commemorate saints. ...

Celebration.

Collections

In the 1940s, the

Federated Women's Clubs The General Federation of Women's Clubs (GFWC), founded in 1890 during the Progressive Movement, is a federation of over 3,000 women's clubs in the United States which promote civic improvements through volunteer service. Many of its activities ...

of Arkansas purchased more than four hundred

botanical Botany, also called , plant biology or phytology, is the science of plant life and a branch of biology. A botanist, plant scientist or phytologist is a scientist who specialises in this field. The term "botany" comes from the Ancient Greek wo ...

paintings by Inez Harrington Whitfield and donated them to the Arkansas Arts Center, now known as the

Arkansas Museum of Fine Arts The Arkansas Museum of Fine Arts (AMFA), formerly known as the Arkansas Arts Center, is an art museum located in MacArthur Park, Little Rock, Arkansas. The museum is undergoing an expansion and renovation. During this time, it is closed to the ...

Little Rock, Arkansas (The Little Rock, The "Little Rock") , government_type = council-manager government, Council-manager , leader_title = List of mayors of Little Rock, Arkansas, Mayor , leader_name = Frank Scott Jr. , leader_ ...

. The purchase was the result of several years of campaigning and fundraising by Arkansas' various women's clubs and the

. * Over 350 individual works, ca. 1935,

. *Original paintings and photographs of Inez Harrington Whitfield, 1901–1951, Garland County Historical Society.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Harrington Whitfield, Inez 1867 births 1951 deaths People from Ilion, New York Smith College alumni Educators from New York (state) American botanical illustrators Artists from Arkansas American anti-suffragists