May 21, 2025 • 9 mins
On this episode of Our American Stories, in just a few centuries, the lawn went from being a status symbol for kings and nobles to a hallmark of the American Dream—and eventually, to something many of us barely think about, aside from when it’s time to mow. The History Guy tells the story of how lawn care came to be.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:10):
This is our American Stories, and our next story comes
to us from a man who's simply known as the
History Guy. His videos are watched by hundreds of thousands
of people of all ages over on YouTube. The History
Guy has also heard here in our American Stories the
idea of a lawn, Well, it's very old, but it
(00:30):
took a key technology to make lawns very common. Here's
the History Guy with the story of lawn care.
Speaker 2 (00:40):
The word lawn is derived from the Middle English word lawnde,
meaning a glade or opening in the woods. Land then
began to mean also a common area in a village
where farmers could graze livestock. Place that may have looked
something like a modern lawn, giving the natural mowing and fertilizing.
The idea of the shared lawd however, shows the difference
in the understanding of a lawn at the top as
(01:00):
the space's nearhouses where reserve for growing vegetables, fruits, and herbs.
The original concept of a dwelling surrounded by grass likely
came from medieval castles, which would have the area around
them clear to forest and or provide a clear field
of vision for defenders. The area thus cleared would then
naturally fill in with grasses. There is documentary evidence of
the use of deliberately cultivated turf grasses, as it only
(01:22):
as the twelfth century in England for bowling greens. The
oldest known bowling green for target style bowling to survive
to modern times was built in twelve ninety nine in
Southampton and is still used by the Southampton Bowling Club.
The use of lawns was most likely originally popularized as
a location for sports such as tennis and croquet courts
and golf putting greens. Perhaps it was the association with
(01:45):
castles homes of the wealthier. Perhaps it was simply as
a landscaping element, but the idea of a lush, carefully
cut green grass lawn gained popularity in the latter half
of the seventeenth century as part of the Magnificent Gardens
of rich estates. The legendary lands escape artist Andre Lenoort
used expanses of green grass called tappy ver day in
the Magnificent Gardens that he helped to design at places
(02:07):
like the Chateau deish Antilly, London's Greenwich Park, and of
course the Magnificent Gardens at Prosade. But at the time.
The only way to keep your tapis verity cut short
and smooth was with a sight, cutting grass evenly with
a Scythe was labor intensive, for the cutting and sweeping
required great skill and thus was very expensive, although even
the wealthy made use of natural lawn bowing by grazing animals,
(02:29):
but the practicality of loans for common houses. The visceral
desire for which some scientists claim may have been derived
from ancient origins in Africa, where expanses of low lying
turf grass allowed humans to be able to spot both
prey and predators, can be credited to one Edwin Beard
Butting born in seventeen ninety six. Butting was a freelance
engineer from Stroud, Gloucestershire, working among the British textile industry.
(02:52):
He invented several things, including making improvements on a carting
machine machine that disentangles and processes fibers that can then
be woven. Among the inventions for which he has given
credit is the adjustable spanner. But His most influential patent
was patent number six zero eight one, granted August thirty first,
eighteen thirty and described as a new combination and application
(03:13):
of machinery for the purpose of cropping and shearing the
vegetable surface of lawns, grass plots and pleasure grounds. Putting
gotten his idea from a cross cutting device used in
textile making that uses a cutting cylinder to trim the
uneven nap from woolen cloth and give it a smooth finish.
His device, which are reportedly tested at night to protect
the idea from being stolen, used a nineteen inch frame
(03:34):
made of wrought iron. The more was pushed from behind
the rear roller, drove gears to transfer the drive to
the knives and the cutting cylinder, and there was an
additional roller placed in between the cutting cylinder and the
land roller, which was adjusted to alter the height of
the cut. The grass clippings were thrown forward into a
tray like box. The patent description added contrary, gentlemen may
find in using my machine themselves an amusing, useful and
(03:57):
healthy exercise. One of the first machines went to Regent's
Park Zoological Gardens in London. In the Oxford Colleges, Mister
Curtis the formatut Regent's Park set of the machine. It
does as much work as six or eight men with
size and brooms, performing the whole so perfectly as not
to leave a mark of any kind. Budding went into
partnership with the local engineer and manufactured his device, selling
(04:18):
around a thousand of his machines in the eighteen thirties.
The design would develop over time. Initially, a handle was
added to allow the motion of the machine to be
assisted by someone pulling from the front. It took nearly
a decade before there was a patent for a horse
or pony pulled version, and versions that used chains rather
than gears, making the device lighter, came out in the
eighteen fifties. By the end of the nineteenth century there
(04:40):
were the first steam and petrol driven versions. American agronomist
doctor James Beard, who was so much an expert on
grass that he was referred to among crop scientists as
the Pope of turf Grass, noted that the development of
home lawns, ironically a connection to the wild, has been
intrinsically linked to prosperity in development. As he explained, basically,
turf grasses were developed by modern civilizations in order to
(05:03):
enhance the quality of life of humans. The more technically
advanced civilization, the more widely, turf grasses are used. The
legendary American landscaper Frederick law Olmsted, who designed New York's
Central Park, designed suburbs where each house had a lawn
in the eighteen fifties. Strangely, it was the industrially manufactured
lawn mower that was essential to the lawns that were
(05:23):
the very symbol of the desire to escape the industrialized city.
The lawn became indelibly a part of American culture because
of developer William Jared Levitt's Levitt Towns. His seven large
housing developments, made after World War Two and designed for
returning veterans in their families, became the model for suburban
and at the time almost purely Caucasian living. The houses,
(05:44):
built assembly line style so that they could be produced
quickly and inexpensively, were very popular. The houses came with
instructions to maintain perfect wheat free lawns. The lawn was essential,
he argued, to the charm and beauty of the individual home.
Levitt's designed so defined American living that Time magazine named
him one of the one hundred most Influential people of
(06:05):
the twentieth century. Grass lawns are so central to American
life that a twenty seventeen article in Scientific American described
them as a physical manifestation the American dream of home ownership.
According to Esthimus, based on NASA satellite imagery, today there
are somewhere around forty million acres of lawns in the
continentally United States, making turf grass the single largest irrigated
(06:28):
crop in the country. American lawns take up three times
as much space as irrigating corn. Fully, twenty percent of
the land area of the states of Massachusetts and New
Jersey are covered in turf grass. According to a twenty
fifteen survey, American adults collectively spend more than two point
three billion minutes and roughly twenty nine point one billion
(06:50):
dollars on long care and gardening annually. The average American
homeowner will spend one hundred and fifty hours a year
on their lawn, and seventy five five percent of the
homeowner's surveyed agreed that my lawn and garden are a
reflection of my personality. There is a downside. A study
of emergency room incidents determined that the US averages eighty
(07:10):
four thousand, nine hundred and forty four injuries from lawn
mowers annually, and the American Academy of Orthopedic Surgeons determine
that lawnmower accidents are the number one cause of amputations
among children in the United States. There is some pushback,
and there is a movement among some homeowners to reduce
or eliminate lawns, both out of environmental concerns and pure
(07:31):
dislike for the chore. A CBS News poll in twenty
eleven found that for one in five Americans, mowing the
lawn was there least like chore, ranked lower than raking
leaves or shoveling snow. And the sentiments of this new
anti lawn movement might have been best expressed in a
twenty fifteen opinion piece published in the Chicago Tribune entitled commentary,
(07:52):
Lawns are a soul crushing time suck, and most of
us would be better off without them. Still, lawns are
overwhelmingly popular among homeowners in the United States, and not
just the United States. In Australia, which is facing civil
droughts in recent years, loans are still popular. People simply
shifted to new drought resistant strains, and there are alternatives
available both realistic fake grasp for your lawn and remote
(08:17):
control robotic lawnmowers are transforming the very idea of lawn maintenance.
And while lawns may have a distinguished history, their future
might be even more interesting.
Speaker 1 (08:28):
And what great storytelling the history of the lawn. And
we thank the History Guy for all that he does
for us. And if you want more stories of forgotten history,
more stories like this, please subscribe to his YouTube channel,
The History Guy. History deserves to be remembered. And I
can tell you this, I don't think doing the lawn
(08:50):
is a soul crushing time suck. And I took no
greater happiness than driving around in my riding lawnmower and
doing my lawn once a week. And my goodness, I'm
with a lot of Americans two point three billion minutes
and twenty nine billion dollars on lawn care one hundred
and fifty hours a year, because for so many of
(09:12):
us it gives us joy, a little order out of disorder.
That's what we're doing the story of lawns and lawn
care here on our American Stories
This is our American Stories, and our next story comes
to us from a man who's simply known as the
History Guy. His videos are watched by hundreds of thousands
of people of all ages over on YouTube. The History
Guy has also heard here in our American Stories the
idea of a lawn, Well, it's very old, but it
(00:30):
took a key technology to make lawns very common. Here's
the History Guy with the story of lawn care.
Speaker 2 (00:40):
The word lawn is derived from the Middle English word lawnde,
meaning a glade or opening in the woods. Land then
began to mean also a common area in a village
where farmers could graze livestock. Place that may have looked
something like a modern lawn, giving the natural mowing and fertilizing.
The idea of the shared lawd however, shows the difference
in the understanding of a lawn at the top as
(01:00):
the space's nearhouses where reserve for growing vegetables, fruits, and herbs.
The original concept of a dwelling surrounded by grass likely
came from medieval castles, which would have the area around
them clear to forest and or provide a clear field
of vision for defenders. The area thus cleared would then
naturally fill in with grasses. There is documentary evidence of
the use of deliberately cultivated turf grasses, as it only
(01:22):
as the twelfth century in England for bowling greens. The
oldest known bowling green for target style bowling to survive
to modern times was built in twelve ninety nine in
Southampton and is still used by the Southampton Bowling Club.
The use of lawns was most likely originally popularized as
a location for sports such as tennis and croquet courts
and golf putting greens. Perhaps it was the association with
(01:45):
castles homes of the wealthier. Perhaps it was simply as
a landscaping element, but the idea of a lush, carefully
cut green grass lawn gained popularity in the latter half
of the seventeenth century as part of the Magnificent Gardens
of rich estates. The legendary lands escape artist Andre Lenoort
used expanses of green grass called tappy ver day in
the Magnificent Gardens that he helped to design at places
(02:07):
like the Chateau deish Antilly, London's Greenwich Park, and of
course the Magnificent Gardens at Prosade. But at the time.
The only way to keep your tapis verity cut short
and smooth was with a sight, cutting grass evenly with
a Scythe was labor intensive, for the cutting and sweeping
required great skill and thus was very expensive, although even
the wealthy made use of natural lawn bowing by grazing animals,
(02:29):
but the practicality of loans for common houses. The visceral
desire for which some scientists claim may have been derived
from ancient origins in Africa, where expanses of low lying
turf grass allowed humans to be able to spot both
prey and predators, can be credited to one Edwin Beard
Butting born in seventeen ninety six. Butting was a freelance
engineer from Stroud, Gloucestershire, working among the British textile industry.
(02:52):
He invented several things, including making improvements on a carting
machine machine that disentangles and processes fibers that can then
be woven. Among the inventions for which he has given
credit is the adjustable spanner. But His most influential patent
was patent number six zero eight one, granted August thirty first,
eighteen thirty and described as a new combination and application
(03:13):
of machinery for the purpose of cropping and shearing the
vegetable surface of lawns, grass plots and pleasure grounds. Putting
gotten his idea from a cross cutting device used in
textile making that uses a cutting cylinder to trim the
uneven nap from woolen cloth and give it a smooth finish.
His device, which are reportedly tested at night to protect
the idea from being stolen, used a nineteen inch frame
(03:34):
made of wrought iron. The more was pushed from behind
the rear roller, drove gears to transfer the drive to
the knives and the cutting cylinder, and there was an
additional roller placed in between the cutting cylinder and the
land roller, which was adjusted to alter the height of
the cut. The grass clippings were thrown forward into a
tray like box. The patent description added contrary, gentlemen may
find in using my machine themselves an amusing, useful and
(03:57):
healthy exercise. One of the first machines went to Regent's
Park Zoological Gardens in London. In the Oxford Colleges, Mister
Curtis the formatut Regent's Park set of the machine. It
does as much work as six or eight men with
size and brooms, performing the whole so perfectly as not
to leave a mark of any kind. Budding went into
partnership with the local engineer and manufactured his device, selling
(04:18):
around a thousand of his machines in the eighteen thirties.
The design would develop over time. Initially, a handle was
added to allow the motion of the machine to be
assisted by someone pulling from the front. It took nearly
a decade before there was a patent for a horse
or pony pulled version, and versions that used chains rather
than gears, making the device lighter, came out in the
eighteen fifties. By the end of the nineteenth century there
(04:40):
were the first steam and petrol driven versions. American agronomist
doctor James Beard, who was so much an expert on
grass that he was referred to among crop scientists as
the Pope of turf Grass, noted that the development of
home lawns, ironically a connection to the wild, has been
intrinsically linked to prosperity in development. As he explained, basically,
turf grasses were developed by modern civilizations in order to
(05:03):
enhance the quality of life of humans. The more technically
advanced civilization, the more widely, turf grasses are used. The
legendary American landscaper Frederick law Olmsted, who designed New York's
Central Park, designed suburbs where each house had a lawn
in the eighteen fifties. Strangely, it was the industrially manufactured
lawn mower that was essential to the lawns that were
(05:23):
the very symbol of the desire to escape the industrialized city.
The lawn became indelibly a part of American culture because
of developer William Jared Levitt's Levitt Towns. His seven large
housing developments, made after World War Two and designed for
returning veterans in their families, became the model for suburban
and at the time almost purely Caucasian living. The houses,
(05:44):
built assembly line style so that they could be produced
quickly and inexpensively, were very popular. The houses came with
instructions to maintain perfect wheat free lawns. The lawn was essential,
he argued, to the charm and beauty of the individual home.
Levitt's designed so defined American living that Time magazine named
him one of the one hundred most Influential people of
(06:05):
the twentieth century. Grass lawns are so central to American
life that a twenty seventeen article in Scientific American described
them as a physical manifestation the American dream of home ownership.
According to Esthimus, based on NASA satellite imagery, today there
are somewhere around forty million acres of lawns in the
continentally United States, making turf grass the single largest irrigated
(06:28):
crop in the country. American lawns take up three times
as much space as irrigating corn. Fully, twenty percent of
the land area of the states of Massachusetts and New
Jersey are covered in turf grass. According to a twenty
fifteen survey, American adults collectively spend more than two point
three billion minutes and roughly twenty nine point one billion
(06:50):
dollars on long care and gardening annually. The average American
homeowner will spend one hundred and fifty hours a year
on their lawn, and seventy five five percent of the
homeowner's surveyed agreed that my lawn and garden are a
reflection of my personality. There is a downside. A study
of emergency room incidents determined that the US averages eighty
(07:10):
four thousand, nine hundred and forty four injuries from lawn
mowers annually, and the American Academy of Orthopedic Surgeons determine
that lawnmower accidents are the number one cause of amputations
among children in the United States. There is some pushback,
and there is a movement among some homeowners to reduce
or eliminate lawns, both out of environmental concerns and pure
(07:31):
dislike for the chore. A CBS News poll in twenty
eleven found that for one in five Americans, mowing the
lawn was there least like chore, ranked lower than raking
leaves or shoveling snow. And the sentiments of this new
anti lawn movement might have been best expressed in a
twenty fifteen opinion piece published in the Chicago Tribune entitled commentary,
(07:52):
Lawns are a soul crushing time suck, and most of
us would be better off without them. Still, lawns are
overwhelmingly popular among homeowners in the United States, and not
just the United States. In Australia, which is facing civil
droughts in recent years, loans are still popular. People simply
shifted to new drought resistant strains, and there are alternatives
available both realistic fake grasp for your lawn and remote
(08:17):
control robotic lawnmowers are transforming the very idea of lawn maintenance.
And while lawns may have a distinguished history, their future
might be even more interesting.
Speaker 1 (08:28):
And what great storytelling the history of the lawn. And
we thank the History Guy for all that he does
for us. And if you want more stories of forgotten history,
more stories like this, please subscribe to his YouTube channel,
The History Guy. History deserves to be remembered. And I
can tell you this, I don't think doing the lawn
(08:50):
is a soul crushing time suck. And I took no
greater happiness than driving around in my riding lawnmower and
doing my lawn once a week. And my goodness, I'm
with a lot of Americans two point three billion minutes
and twenty nine billion dollars on lawn care one hundred
and fifty hours a year, because for so many of
(09:12):
us it gives us joy, a little order out of disorder.
That's what we're doing the story of lawns and lawn
care here on our American Stories
Host
Lee Habeeb
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