New Lady Bird Johnson Photos Released

By alcalde in Blog on September 20, 2010 at 4:25 pm | No Comments

Hundreds of never-before-seen photos of Lady Bird Johnson have been released to the public and are now available on the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center website.

The candid and formal photos of Lady Bird at the family’s ranch in Stonewall, Texas, and out at the wildflower center in South Austin form what the center now calls the Lady Bird Legacy Collection. They are available thanks to a grant from the Texas State Library and Archives Commission and the Institute for Museum and Library Services.

Lady Bird was long known as a champion of wildflowers and wildlife in general. The center describes her as “a young girl from Karnack, Texas, who grew up to become America’s environmental first lady.”

She formed what would eventually become the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center in 1982, along with actress Helen Hayes, to protect and preserve North America’s native plants and natural landscapes.

In 2006, the center became an organized research unit of The University of Texas.

Lady Bird Johnson in a field of wildflowers at the LBJ Ranch. Photo by Paul Cox, courtesy of the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center.