340 “This is a civilized community”: Cynthia Zaitzevsky, Fairsted: A Cultural Landscape Report (Brookline, MA: National Park Service, Olmsted Center for Landscape Preservation, 1997), 9.
340 “very low”: FLO to Charles Eliot Norton, October 19, 1881, reprinted in Papers, 7:561.
340 “We are again under”: Ibid.
341 “The whole thing seems”: John Platt to FLO, November 23, 1881.
341 “John certainly felt”: Calvert Vaux to FLO, December 9, 1881.
341 “tranquilizing”: FLO to Brace, March 7, 1882.
342 February 1883: Terms of Olmsted’s salary, Zaitzevsky, Fairsted, 9–10.
342 “Your house—a beautiful thing”: Richardson to FLO, February 6, 1883.
342 stepson John would build them a cottage: Interview on June 22, 2010, JM with Alan Banks, supervisory ranger, Fairsted, Frederick Law Olmsted National Historic Site.
342 Olmsted converted the large: Details on Fairsted interior drawn from Alan Banks tour of Fairsted for JM, June 22, 2010, and FLO Jr.’s “Random Notes About FLO’s Brookline Office,” June 1952, Library of Congress.
343 Richardson’s flamboyant home office: Details from Mariana Griswold van Rensselaer, Henry Hobson Richardson and His Works (New York: Dover Publications, 1969), 124–125.
343 gave Olmsted a cucumber magnolia: Alan Banks tour of Fairsted for JM, June 22, 2010.
344 “I’ll plan anything”: Richardson, quoted in Cynthia Zaitzevsky, Frederick Law Olmsted and the Boston Park System (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1982), 176.
344 “I enjoy this suburban”: FLO to Brace, March 7, 1882.
345 “throw more upon Eliot”: FLO to JCO, December 15, 1884, Loeb Library.
345 “Nothing else compares”: FLO quoted in Zaitzevsky, Frederick Law Olmsted, vii.
346 “Jeweled Girdle”: Interview on June 23, 2010, JM with Jeanie Knox, director of external affairs, Emerald Necklace Conservancy.
346 An unknown someone: Detail checked on December 10, 2010, by JM with Alan Banks, supervisory ranger, Fairsted.
Chapter 28: Saving Niagara, Designing Stanford
347 “From this hour”: Pierre Berton, Niagara: A History of the Falls (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1992), 193.
348 “To drive around”: Boston Daily Advertiser, September 14, 1881.
348 “Carlyle signs”: Charles Eliot Norton to FLO, December 23, 1878.
348 “I don’t see that”: Washington Post, September 14, 1882.
349 “Governor Cleveland strongly”: H. H. Richardson to FLO, February 6, 1883.
349 “I congratulate you”: Norton quoted in Berton, Niagara: A History of the Falls, 191.
349 “particularly offensive”: Laura Wood Roper, FLO: A Biography of Frederick Law Olmsted (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1973), 397.
350 “life seems a struggle”: Jervis McEntee, quoted in Francis Kowsky, Country, Park, and City: The Architecture and Life of Calvert Vaux (New York: Oxford University Press, 1998), 306.
351 “I have followed the Appalachian”: “Notes by Mr. Olmsted,” Special Report of New York State Survey on the Preservation of the Scenery of Niagara Falls, reprinted in Papers, 7:477–478.
351 “He helped me”: FLO to Mariana Griswold van Rensselaer, May 17, 1887.
351 “well windward of expenses”: FLO to Calvert Vaux, April 16, 1887, quoted in Kowsky, Country, Park, and City, 306.
352 “He went on discussing”: FLO to van Rensselaer, May 2, 1887.
352 in excruciating pain: Mariana Griswold van Rensselaer, Henry Hobson Richardson and His Works (New York: Dover Publications, 1969), 36.
352 after having her third child, Charlotte: Mac Griswold’s afterword in Fairsted: A Cultural Landscape Report (Brookline, MA: National Park Service, Olmsted Center for Landscape Preservation, 1997), 134.
352 “changes in our time”: FLO to Brace, November 1, 1884.
353 “It’s a pity”: Kingsbury to Brace, January 10, 1885.
354 “There is not any word”: FLO to Charles Eliot, June 8, 1886, Stanford Library, Special Collections.
355 “The site is settled”: FLO to JCO, September 18, 1886.
356 The quads and arcades: Interview on March 29, 2010, JM with Dave Lenox, Stanford University architect.
356 “I find Governor Stanford”: FLO to Eliot, July 20, 1886, Stanford Library, Special Collections.
356 “not a tree, nor a bush”: FLO to Leland Stanford, November 27, 1886, Stanford Library, Special Collections.
357 “Gov. replied a Landscape Arch’t”: Charles Coolidge to FLO, May 3, 1887, Stanford Library, Special Collections.
357 simply cribbed one: Reference to Shepley, Rutan & Coolidge borrowing H. H. Richardson designs drawn from Paul Turner et al., The Founders and the Architects: The Design of Stanford University (Palo Alto: Department of Art, Stanford University, 1976), 40.
358 “We are now compelled”: FLO to Stanford, May 14, 1890, Stanford Library, Special Collections.
358 “We are gradually improving”: Stanford to FLO, November 9, 1891, Stanford Library, Special Collections.
Chapter 29: Big House in the Big Woods
360 “delicate, refined, and bookish”: FLO to Kingsbury, January 20, 1891.
361 “What do you imagine”: Ibid.
361 During recent travels: Interview on August 30, 2010, JM with Bill Alexander, landscape and forest historian, the Biltmore Estate.
362 The Cultivation and Management: Bill Alexander, The Biltmore Nursery: A Botanical Legacy (Charleston, SC: Natural History Press, 2007), 23.
362 “There is no experience”: FLO to George Vanderbilt, July 12, 1889.
362 “Such land in Europe”: FLO to Kingsbury, January 20, 1891.
363 “private work of very rare public interest”: FLO to W. A. Thompson, November 6, 1889.
363 “earnest, tempestuous and used”: FLO, quoted in John Bryan, The Biltmore Estate : The Most Distinguished Private Place (New York: Rizzolli International Publications, 1994), 23.
365 “fall tripingly [sic] off”: FLO to Vanderbilt, July 12, 1889.
366 “My office is much better”: FLO to Brace, January 18, 1890.
366 “His death was a shock”: FLO to Kingsbury, January 20, 1891.
366 “dosed me excessively”: Ibid.
366 Woozy, half out of his mind: Details of Olmsted’s composing his first letter to Elizabeth Baldwin Whitney from Papers, 1:66.
366 “in vino veritas”: Ibid.
367 “queer note”: FLO to Elizabeth Baldwin Whitney, December 16, 1890.
367 “I know that in the minds”: Ibid.
367 “stating on honor”: FLO to FLO Jr., [about] December 1, 1890.
368 “I have, with an amount”: FLO to FLO Jr., September 5, 1890.
368 “It would be no use”: FLO Jr. to FLO, November 25, 1890.
Chapter 30: A White City Dreamscape
370 “toothless, witless old dotard”: R. Reid Badger, The Great American Fair: The World’s Columbian Exposition and American Culture (Chicago: Nelson Hall, 1979), 45.
370 “cattle show”: Donald Miller, City of the Century: The Epic of Chicago and the Making of America (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1996), 379–380.
371 “Chicago Shall Rise Again!”: Badger, Great American Fair, 33.
371 “In all the world”: Ibid., 31.
371 “When can you be here?”: Erik Larson, The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair That Changed America (New York: Vintage Books, 2004), 52.
372 “We have carried our”: FLO to JCO, November 24, 1890.
373 “some big strong tree”: Miller, City of the Century, 317.
374 “looked as if he were drawing”: Ibid., 328.
374 “Do you mean to say”: Ibid., 382.
375 “Gentlemen, 1893 will be”: Larson, The Devil in the White City, 97.
375 “a place of relief”: FLO to Henry Codman, November 4, 1891.
376 “You’re dreaming, g
entlemen”: Larson, The Devil in the White City, 115.
376 Staff is a kind: Description of staff drawn in part from interview, June 9, 2010, JM with Julia Bachrach, Chicago Park District.
377 “I suspect that even”: FLO to Daniel Burnham, December 23, 1891.
377 In a follow-up memo: FLO to Burnham, December 28, 1891.
377 “You know that if boats”: FLO to Burnham, December 23, 1891.
378 “Turkey red” wallpaper: FLO to FLO Jr., June 28, 1891.
378 “grandiloquent pomp”: “Report of Frederick Law Olmsted,” April 1892, fragment, Library of Congress.
379 “peculiarity of my case”: FLO to Henry Codman, June 16, 1892.
380 “You know that I am”: Ibid.
380 “A most capital school”: FLO to partners, July 19, 1892.
381 “I am tired”: FLO to JCO, October 11, 1892.
381 “I have worked, I have schemed”: Miller, City of the Century, 382.
381 “I am as one standing on a wreck”: FLO to Gifford Pinchot, January 19, 1893.
381 The temperature on February 4, 1893: FLO to JCO, February 4, 1893.
382 “It looks as if”: FLO to JCO, February 17, 1893.
382 “The dirt of the provisional”: FLO to JCO, April 27, 1893.
382 “I am living”: FLO to JCO, April 20, 1893.
383 “paints with lakes and wooded slopes”: Daniel Burnham speech of March 25, 1893, Ryerson and Burnham Libraries, the Art Institute of Chicago.
383 “I doubt if a man”: Kingsbury to FLO, July 8, 1893.
384 “Everywhere there is growing interest”: FLO to Burnham, June 20, 1893.
385 “Mr. Olmstead Talks”: Atlanta Constitution, March 18, 1894.
385 “Words fail”: Badger, Great American Fair, 97.
Chapter 31: “Before I Am the Least Prepared for It”
388 a forty-nine-page pamphlet: Bill Alexander, The Biltmore Nursery: A Botanical Legacy (Charleston, SC: Natural History Press, 2007), 27.
388 “Am I needed at Kansas City?”: FLO to JCO, October 27, 1893.
388 “My health is extremely frail”: FLO to JCO, October 28, 1893.
388 “This is a place and G. W. V.”: FLO to partners, November 1, 1893.
389 “breaks suddenly and fully”: FLO to George Vanderbilt, July 12, 1889.
389 “Hasn’t Olmsted done wonders”: Alexander, Biltmore Nursery, 48.
390 “Write in a personal way”: FLO to FLO Jr., December 23, 1894.
391 “I am compelled to answer”: FLO Jr. to FLO, January 1, 1895.
392 The letters were nearly identical: J. G. Langston “reminiscence” from January 31, 1921, Library of Congress.
393 “I can’t think that you”: FLO to partners, August 31, 1895, Loeb Library.
393 “It would help us very much”: JCO to FLO, September 2, 1895.
393 “In my flurry”: FLO to Charles Eliot, September 26, 1895, Loeb Library.
394 “in a dreadful state”: MPO to JCO, September 27, 1895.
394 “I am lying awake nights”: FLO to FLO Jr., July 11 or August 11 [unclear], 1895.
394 “Observe, inquire, read”: FLO to FLO Jr., [date unclear but appears to be autumn 1895].
394 “I write only in yielding”: FLO to FLO Jr., October 15, 1895.
394 “I am thinking more”: FLO to FLO Jr., October 14, 1895.
395 “You cannot think how much”: FLO to FLO Jr., October 1895 [no day specified in letter].
396 “I am going down hill rapidly”: FLO to JCO, December 12, 1895, Loeb Library.
396 His wife had died: Francis Kowsky, Country, Park, and City: The Architecture and Life of Calvert Vaux (New York: Oxford University Press, 1998), 312.
396 a man told the Brooklyn Eagle: Brooklyn Eagle, November 21, 1895.
397 “I am quite equal”: MPO to “my dear boys,” April 22, 1896.
397 In a separate letter: Marion Olmsted to JCO and FLO Jr., March 31, 1896.
397 Then Mary traveled to the Continent: MPO to JCO, April 10, 1896.
398 “They didn’t carry”: Laura Wood Roper, FLO: A Biography of Frederick Law Olmsted (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1973), 474.
398 “I said you could”: JCO to FLO Jr., December 15, 1897, Loeb Library.
Chapter 32: Fade
399 At two o’clock in the morning on August 28, 1903: Theodora Kimball timeline, Library of Congress.
399 Three days later: A small funeral service was held at Fairsted; it appears that Mary Olmsted attended this service but not the interment of Olmsted’s ashes at the Old North Cemetery in Hartford. See JCO to Sophia White Olmsted, September 8, 1903, Loeb Library.
Epilogue: Olmsted’s Wild Garden
401 Much of its business involved circling back around: Detail based on interviews with a number of current caretakers of Olmsted green spaces, including April 2, 2010, JM with Barbara Smith and Dennis Evanosky, docents, Mountain View Cemetery.
402 Rick also served alongside Daniel Burnham: Interview on July 12, 2010, JM with Steve Livengood, chief guide, U.S. Capitol Historical Society.
402 “one of the finest planned communities ever”: Susan Klaus, A Modern Arcadia: Frederick Law Olmsted Jr. and the Plan for Forest Hills Gardens (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 2002), back cover.
402 contributions of an Olmsted sister: Details about Marion Olmsted’s role in the firm drawn from interview on June 22, 2010, JM with Alan Banks, supervisory ranger, Fairsted, Frederick Law Olmsted National Historic Site.
403 all the way to 2000: Details about Olmsted firm after no Olmsteds involved from ibid.
403 “With my work”: Interview on December 2, 2010, JM with Peter Walker, founder of PWP Landscape Architecture.
404 “the nearest thing posterity”: FLO, The Cotton Kingdom (New York: Da Capo Press, 1996), ix.
INDEX
Note: In subheadings, references to Frederick FLO; subheadings referring to Frederick Law name Rick.
Abbott, James
Abolitionist, FLO as
FLO’s initial gradualist stance on slavery
FLO’s opposition to slavery on economic grounds
FLO’s view that slavery causes cultural stagnation
Contrast provided by Texas German free-soilers
FLO’s aid to Kansas free-soilers
FLO’s abolitionist stance stiffens
FLO’s reaction to Emancipation Proclamation
Across the Continent (Bowles)
Ahwahneechee Indians
Akerly, Samuel
Allison, Samuel
Alphand, Jean-Charles Adolphe
Alzheimer’s or some other form of senile dementia afflicts FLO
American Association for the Relief of the Misery of Battlefields (AARMB)
American Freedmen’s Aid Union
American Institute of Architects
American Red Cross (Olmsted’s USSC as forerunner)
The American Spelling Book (Webster)
Anderson, Robert
Law Olmsted are shown with the initials Olmsted Jr. “Rick” are shown with the
Arboretums
Biltmore Estate (proposed)
Boston’s Arnold Arboretum
Stanford University (proposed)
Architecture (structures vs. landscape)
of Biltmore mansion
for buildings at Chicago World’s Fair
Downing and Vaux collaborations
Richardson and FLO collaborations
See also under names of specific architects
Arendt, Hannah
Aristotle
Arnold Arboretum, Boston
Arthur, Chester
Ashburner, William
Asheville, North Carolina
Atlanta, Georgia. See Druid Hills
Atlantic magazine
Bache, Alexander
Back Bay Fens (park), Boston
Baldwin, Elizabeth
Barnum, P. T.
“Bartleby the Scrivener” novella
(Melville)
Barton, Clara
Barton, F. A.
Baseball games in Central Park
Beadle, Chauncey
Bear Valley, California
Beck, James
Beecher, Henry Ward
Beecher Bibles (Sharps rifles)
Belle Isle park, Detroit
Bellows, Henry
as USSC creator, administrator
relationship with FLO
founds AARMB
supports Geneva treaty
death
Belmont, August
“Benito Cereno” story (Melville)
Benkard and Hutton importer
Bennett, James Gordon
Bentham and Hooker classification system
Bierce, Ambrose
Bierstadt, Albert
Biltmore Estate, Asheville, North Carolina
design of mansion by Hunt
landscape design by FLO
Rick serves as apprentice on project
naming of estate
See also Forest management
Birge, George
Birkenhead Park, Liverpool, England
Blackwood’s Magazine
Bleeding Kansas
Bois de Boulogne, Paris
Boone and Crockett Club
Boston, Massachusetts
Arnold Arboretum
Back Bay Fens
Franklin Park
park commissions
park system (Emerald Necklace)
Boulder, Colorado
Bow Bridge in Central Park
Bowles, Samuel
Brace, Charles Loring “Charley”
background and youth
as abolitionist
as author
Children’s Aid Society founder
hires Vaux for children’s housing
imprisoned in Hungary
marriage and family
as USSC inspector during Civil War
death
Brace, Joab
Brady, Mathew
Bridge designs (FLO parks)
Bright, Edward
Bright’s disease
British Sanitary Commission
Brookline, Massachusetts (FLO’s home). See Fairsted
Brooklyn park. See Prospect Park, Brooklyn
Genius of Place Page 51
