Author, educator, dancer/choreographer and master gardener Faith Reyher Jackson was born in New York City in 1919 to author Ferdinand Reyher (1890-1967) and author and women's rights activist Rebecca Hourwich Reyher (1898-1985). Jackson attended Bennington College in Bennington, Vermont, where she studied under Martha Hill and Martha Graham, graduating with a degree in dance and the arts in 1939. Jackson pioneered a program in dance education at the Academy of the Washington Ballet, where she served as the headmistress from 1964 until her retirement in 1978. Upon her retirement, Jackson devoted considerable time to her gardening efforts, earning her the title of master gardener. Jackson's journalistic career includes positions as the beauty editor of the New York Post from 1945 to 1946 and book editor of the Miami Herald from 1948 to 1950, and she has written for a number of publications, including Dance Magazine, Home & Garden, Mid-Atlantic Country, and American Horticulturist. Her major publications include both fiction and nonfiction, beginning with a scholarly biography of landscape architect William Lyman Phillips, Pioneer of Tropical Landscape Architecture: William Lyman Phillips in Florida, published in 1997 by the University Press of Florida. Jackson's fiction includes Meadow fugue and Descant (2002), for which she was awarded the Washington Writers Award, and her most recent publication, Stone's Throw (2009). Faith Jackson died on November 12, 2012. The collection documents Jackson's literary and journalistic activities, as well as major gardening projects. Material includes correspondence, manuscripts, architectural drawings, photographs, publications, and clippings.
