National Park Service U.S. Department of the Interior

Historical Overview
After cutting the day's flowers, the greenhouse staff did morning and afternoon watering and
tended the plants. The rose house was a more demanding post than the others given the care
required for roses. 350
Every third or fourth week, depending on the number of greenhouse men on the staff,
each man took a turn tending the furnaces in the greenhouses at night in the fall and spring. The
four furnaces burned hard coal, except during the war years when soft coal was used. Each
greenhouse required a different temperature. Changes in the weather affected the internal
temperatures in the houses, so the on-duty man checked the houses several times a night. When
they had their on-duty week, the greenhouse men were essentially working twenty-four hour
shifts, six days per week. 351 A village man was hired as night fireman, replacing the regular men
from the end of November or early December through the coldest part of the winter, usually the
end of February, to tend the furnaces in the greenhouses. 352
Alex Knauss came to the Vanderbilt greenhouses from F. R. Pearson's greenhouses in
Scarborough, Westchester County, on April 1, 1924 and worked in the greenhouses for ten
years. He rotated among the greenhouses in his years on the estate. He was generally
responsible for flower arranging for the mansion. He boarded in the village a short distance
from the main gate of the estate. When he was hired, Knauss was paid $85 per month for a six-
or seven-day week. During the summer, Saturdays were a half-day of work. The greenhouse
men had a week, or perhaps two, off each year. 353
Dink Newman worked in the greenhouses and was the second man, with Alex Knauss,
who arranged flowers for the mansion. He was also responsible for watering the potted plants
in the mansion each morning. 354 Seasonally, the greenhouse men moved the large potted palms
from the mansion to the greenhouses, a job requiring as many as eight men. Potted plants of all
sizes were moved between the mansion and greenhouses according to the Vanderbilts'
occupancy. 355
In spring, the greenhouse men planted all of the nursery stock that they had raised for
the garden beds. Once the plants were in the ground, the greenhouse men were not involved
with the gardens until fall, except to replant any dead material. In the fall, the greenhouse men
began propagating, taking cuttings for the next year's stock. 356
The outside men prepared the planting beds, spading and fertilizing, in preparation for
the greenhouse men to plant their stock. Once the garden was planted, the outside men
maintained the beds throughout the growing season, cultivating, weeding, and edging. 357 On
rainy days the outside men worked in the greenhouses doing odd jobs or might even be called in
to the mansion to help the chef by pot scrubbing. 358
350
Knauss, 1971, 2.
351
Knauss, 1971, 5.
352
Knauss, 1971, 5.
353
Knauss, 1971, 1, 4; Knauss, 1973, 1-2.
354
Knauss, 1971, 3-4.
355
Knauss, 1971, 4; Knauss, 1973, 4.
356
Knauss, 1971, 7-8.
357
Knauss, 1971, 7.
358
Knauss, 1971, 2.
71