If you drive down almost any neighborhood street in America you will notice a common element: lawns.  Sure, there may be different types of grass, depending on where in the country you are (weather has a lot to do with the type of grass seeds that people plant), but lawns are common almost everywhere.  But it hasn’t always been this way. 

In the early days of American history, most homes didn’t have grass outside their home.  They ever had packed dirt or flower or vegetable gardens.  Sure, the sprawling mansions of Great Britain and France had beautiful lawns but not so in the United States.  It wasn’t until the early 1930’s that Americans started to embrace the idea of lawns. 

So why did it take so long for something as relatively simple as a lawn to catch on in the United States?  For several logical reasons.  First of all, the climate throughout much of the United States is vastly different than in Europe.  So the types of grass seeds that grew in Europe failed to grow here.  In 1915, the U.S. Department of Agriculture started to develop grass seeds that could be grown in the U.S.

The other difficulty was how to cut the lawn.  Although, Woodrow Wilson is famous for keeping a flock of sheep on the White House lawn to keep the grass short, it’s not a practical solution to the problem.  Sheep eat the grass by pulling it from the roots, so if you’re going to have sheep it’s also important to keep a large supply of grass seeds on hand. 

Although the lawn mower was invented in the late 1800’s and the U.S. was manufacturing 50,000 mowers a year by 1885, it took the invention of another small tool, the garden hose, and The American Garden Club, which started a “Beautify America” campaign before lawns really caught on in the United States.

It is well known that the Dust Bowl in the early 1930’s was caused by soil erosion and the lack of nutrients.  Millions of acres of dirt lay fallow and the unusually strong winds caused the dirt to blow.  Perhaps, a simple idea such as more lawns throughout the country could have made  bit of a difference.