ABSTRACT
This chapter examines African American ornamental gardens in 20th-century Indianapolis, Indiana and focuses on the ways gardens borrowed from the quiet imagination, aesthetic creativity, and claims to citizenship that were at the heart of African American consumption. The seemingly conventional nature of mass consumption, the complicated performative dimensions of African American materiality, and the rich inner nature of African American consumers are especially clear in the legion of flower gardens dotting African America. African American ornamental gardens were part of a rich African diasporan environmental and gardening heritage, and a host of scholars have examined the cultural traditions found in African American landscapes in the midst of captivity and after freedom. African American gardening traditions were transported to cities after freedom, and many African Americans inevitably brought those traditions with them to cities like Indianapolis in the 20th century. In contrast to most 20th-century American metropolises, Indianapolis had a high percentage of single-household residences.
