Theodora Kimball Hubbard (1887-1935) was the first librarian of the Harvard School of Landscape Architecture

Harvard Graduate School of Design

The Harvard Graduate School of Design is a graduate school at Harvard University offering degrees in Architecture, Landscape Architecture, and Urban Planning and Design.-History:...

, and a contemporary of and collaborator with many significant figures in landscape architecture

Landscape architecture

Landscape architecture is the design of outdoor and public spaces to achieve environmental, socio-behavioral, or aesthetic outcomes. It involves the systematic investigation of existing social, ecological, and geological conditions and processes in the landscape, and the design of interventions...

 in expanding the body of knowledge in that subject area.

Education and career

Theodora Kimball Hubbard was a graduate of Simmons College

Simmons College (Massachusetts)

Simmons College, established in 1899, is a private women's undergraduate college and private co-educational graduate school in Boston, Massachusetts.-History:Simmons was founded in 1899 with a bequest by John Simmons a wealthy clothing manufacturer in Boston...

, and worked as the Landscape Architecture Librarian at Harvard from 1911-1924. She left Harvard in 1924, the year she married Henry Vincent Hubbard, but continued to serve the library in an advisory capacity. She served on President Herbert Hoover

Herbert Hoover

Herbert Clark Hoover was the 31st President of the United States . Hoover was originally a professional mining engineer and author. As the United States Secretary of Commerce in the 1920s under Presidents Warren Harding and Calvin Coolidge, he promoted partnerships between government and business...

's advisory Committee on Zoning in Washington, D.C.

Washington, D.C.

Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly referred to as Washington, "the District", or simply D.C., is the capital of the United States. On July 16, 1790, the United States Congress approved the creation of a permanent national capital as permitted by the U.S. Constitution....

 as an expert on zoning, and also a member of the research committee for the President's Conference on Home Building and Home Ownership. She is credited with writing over 100 editorials, articles, and reviews in addition to preparing detailed bibliographies and reports on the fields of landscape and city planning. She collaborated with her husband on a basic textbook for landscape architecture, An Introduction to the Study of Landscape Design, which for many years was considered the standard text. Through her work she achieved international recognition.

In 1919, Hubbard became the first woman accepted as a member to the American City Planning Institute. That same year she developed the first Library of Congress Classification

Library of Congress Classification

The Library of Congress Classification is a system of library classification developed by the Library of Congress. It is used by most research and academic libraries in the U.S. and several other countries; for example, Australia and Taiwan, R.O.C. It is not to be confused with the Library of...

 for landscape architecture under the subclass (NAB). She developed a separate classification scheme for city planning under the subclass (NAC). She was assisted in this endeavor by her husband Henry Vincent Hubbard

Henry Vincent Hubbard

Henry Vincent Hubbard was an American landscape architect and planner, famous for his unique teaching styles at Harvard University, and his many publications. He was one of the prime supporters for a national system of public parks....

 (1875-1945), a Harvard professor, and the founding editor of Landscape Architecture Magazine. Renowned landscape architect, Frederick Law Olmsted

Frederick Law Olmsted

Frederick Law Olmsted was an American journalist, social critic, public administrator, and landscape designer. He is popularly considered to be the father of American landscape architecture, although many scholars have bestowed that title upon Andrew Jackson Downing...

, the designer of a network of parks known as the "Emerald Necklace

Emerald Necklace

The Emerald Necklace consists of an chain of parks linked by parkways and waterways in Boston and Brookline, Massachusetts. It gets its name from the way the planned chain appears to hang from the "neck" of the Boston peninsula, although it was never fully constructed.-Overview:The Necklace...

" in Boston

Boston

Boston is the capital of and largest city in Massachusetts, and is one of the oldest cities in the United States. The largest city in New England, Boston is regarded as the unofficial "Capital of New England" for its economic and cultural impact on the entire New England region. The city proper had...

, Central Park

Central Park

Central Park is a public park in the center of Manhattan in New York City, United States. The park initially opened in 1857, on of city-owned land. In 1858, Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux won a design competition to improve and expand the park with a plan they entitled the Greensward Plan...

 in New York, and idyllic greenspace

Open space reserve

Open space reserve, open space preserve, and open space reservation, are planning and conservation ethics terms used to describe areas of protected or conserved land or water on which development is indefinitely set aside...

s across the United States is given special acknowledgment in the preface of the published classification scheme, for having contributed many constructive suggestions. The Library of Congress originally assigned a place for landscape architecture as a sub-classification to architecture (NA) by the addition of the letter (B). The authors thought that this placement most precisely acknowledged the artistic component of landscape architecture, whereas placing it in subclass (S), as it is today, would suggest that it is simply another form of agriculture. Books acquired in this subject area since 1978 are now classed in (SB).

One of her most important works: "Municipal Accomplishment in City Planning" a bibliography of all of the works on urbanism in the United States was published in Europe and the United States to great acclaim. As a librarian and writer she made great contributions to the advancement of the profession of landscape design by organizing the information, critiquing the work, and contributing to the literature, giving the field more substance, status and visibility in academic circles.