John Caspar Wister, one of America's most honored horticulturists, spent his youth at the house "Wister" (which stood at Wister and Clarkson Avenues, Germantown, PA), adjacent to the Belfield estate owned by his grandparents and their descendants, and now by La Salle University. A 1909 graduate of Harvard College, Wister studied at the Harvard School of Landscape Architecture and afterwards worked from 1911 to 1916 in landscape architects' offices in Philadelphia and New York. During World War I, he served in France. After the war, he practiced landscape architecture on his own, first from the house "Wister" and later from his home in Swarthmore, PA. In 1929, he became Director of the Arthur Hoyt Horticultural Foundation, Swarthmore College; in 1946, he also became Director of the John J. Tyler Arboretum (Lima, PA); among many other administrative appointments, he served from 1930-1957 as vice-president and then president of the John Bartram Association. The author or editor of a dozen books on horticulture, he also wrote over five hundred articles and gave innumerable lectures around the country. He was honored by many dozens of horticultural groups, including the New York Botanical Garden, the Horticultural Society of New York, the Royal Horticultural Society of Great Britain, the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society, and the Garden Club of America. At his death in 1982, the Philadelphia Inquirer aptly described John Caspar Wister as "the dean of American horticulturists." The papers include correspondence, diaries and day books, manuscripts of lectures and publications, and garden and landscape plans.
