A Clearing In The Distance: Frederick Law Olmsted and America in the 19th Cent

by Rybczynski, Witold

  This book would not be a travel account. “I am cogitating a heavy sort of book on Society in the United States—the influence of pioneer-life—& of Democracy,” he wrote to Godkin shortly after arriving in California. Olmsted’s ambition was to write a comprehensive study of the state of civilization in America. Today the word civilization is most commonly used in reference to the distant past, as in “pre-Columbian civilization.” In nineteenth-century America civilization was not an archaeological term; it referred to contemporary society. Moreover, as used by Olmsted, it described an enlightened state of virtuous and intellectual development. “Civilization is, in fact, the best condition of mankind,” he had written in A Journey in the Back Country, “and the steps by which mankind have arrived at civilization do not need to be retraced to find morality, respectability or happiness.”

  The opposite of civilization is barbarism. Olmsted was greatly influenced by Horace Bushnell’s famous public lecture “Barbarism the First Danger.” Olmsted was at Sachem’s Head at the time, so he probably didn’t hear it but read it in a pamphlet. “Nothing is more certain,” Bushnell wrote in a passage that Olmsted copied into his notes, “. . . than that emigration or a new settlement of the social state involves a tendency to social decline. There must in every such case be a relapse toward barbarism, more or less protracted, more or less complete.” Bushnell certainly had in mind the Irish and European immigrants who were then arriving in large numbers in the Eastern cities, but he was no nativist. American history had always been a process of accommodating transplanted immigrant races who had left behind “all the old roots of local love and historic feeling, the joints and bands that minister nourishment,” he wrote. Hence the importance of educational, civic, and religious institutions. But the settler on the Western frontier, unlike the uprooted European immigrant in the East, did not have the benefit of civilizing influences.

  Bushnell placed his hopes in the power of religion to reform society; Olmsted was less sanguine about the prospects for civilization in the United States. He recognized the fragile situation of American society. He had already observed that one of the chief evils of Southern slavery was that it hindered the development of civilized communities, not only among the slaves but also among the slave owners. His experiences in west Texas had taught him that the conditions of life on the frontier were likewise far from propitious. This perception hardened during his stay in California. Pioneering required self-reliance, yet self-reliance often degenerated into self-indulgence and greed. Self-reliance was also accompanied by an exaggerated sense of personal honor, lawlessness, and profligacy. Bear Valley did not display that sense of solidarity that was engendered by civic institutions. When social and political organizations were formed, their purpose was merely “You stand by me & I will stand by you,” as he put it. Self-interest did not equal community. “You must imagine for yourself what the condition of society is under these circumstances. It is nowhere; there is no society. Any appearance of social convenience that may be found is a mere temporary and temporizing expedient by which men cheat themselves to believe that they are not savages.”

  Olmsted planned to expand Bushnell’s thesis. He would examine not only the frontier but also the large Eastern cities, previous immigrants as well as current Western settlers. As in the past, he based himself on personal observation and “facts.” Previously, he had relied on newspapers and government reports; this time he conceived a quantitative analysis. He had always been fascinated by statistics. He required the Central Park police to keep detailed crime records. The first Sanitary Commission report of demoralization among Union troops depended heavily on statistics. He subsequently hired the actuary Ezekiel Eliott and made record-keeping the keystone of the Commission. Supplies were tracked from warehouse to battlefield. Patients were documented as they were admitted into hospitals. The Commission regularly published a hospital directory that eventually listed six hundred thousand names. (The directory kept track of medical histories and enabled families to locate their wounded and dead relatives.) Olmsted established a Bureau of Vital Statistics that tabulated the reports submitted by the sanitary inspectors. These published results “added more new and valuable facts to the science of vital statistics than any other contribution at any time,” according to a contemporary encyclopedia. Olmsted took advantage of the Bureau of Vital Statistics to compile a social survey. At his own expense, he had a questionnaire circulated among more than seven thousand Union wounded. The data described family backgrounds as well as personal habits and attitudes. He hoped to discover how immigrants were altered by living in America, and how they differed from native-born citizens. “What are the habits, & what is the mental & moral condition of men in the United States whose character & habits have been chiefly influenced by European conditions, & what of those whose character & habits have been much affected by American conditions?” It was a grand scheme. He intended nothing less than to find what made Americans American.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

  Calvert Vaux Doesn’t Take No for an Answer

  IN THE BEGINNING OF JUNE 1865, Olmsted received news from Godkin: “the paper” was to become a reality. A wealthy Philadelphia abolitionist named James Miller McKim had come forward as financial backer. The first issue would appear in July. Olmsted wrote a congratulatory letter. His advice to Godkin reflected both his own sense of isolation as well as his current preoccupation with the subject of civilization. “Your paper needs to be, peculiarly, a substitute to thousands of men situated as I am, as my lawyer twelve miles away is, as numerous clergymen are, for a cultivated companion. . . . Do recollect that except at a very few points there is no cultivated society in America, but a great many intelligent men & women, to whom a newspaper may well be the only substitute for whatever, in a society more elaborately civilized, keeps a man’s common-place cultivation alive.”

  Two weeks later, with the heat of summer coming on, Frederick and Mary set off on a two-week excursion to Yosemite. In August, on another visit to the valley, they joined a large party led by Schuyler Colfax, a Republican Indiana congressman and Speaker of the House of Representatives. Colfax, who was making an official tour of the newly established overland mail route to California, was accompanied by newspaper correspondents from New York and Chicago, and by Samuel Bowles, a Massachusetts newspaper editor. Olmsted particularly wanted to meet Bowles, for he considered his Springfield Republican to be one of the best papers in the country. Bowles was a staunch Unionist and had been a supporter of Lincoln. Like Olmsted, he had a nervous disposition and a tendency to overwork. He had undertaken the trip with Colfax in the hope of restoring his failing health. Olmsted warned Bowles about indulging his “habit of mental intemperance” and admonished him to work less. Olmsted offered himself as an example: “I do know that I ought to be sent to an inebriate Asylum—and I do try to treat myself a little as a drunkard ought to treat himself.”

  The group camping at Clark’s ranch that August also included several Yosemite commissioners—Galen Clark, William Ashburner, and George Coulter, a local businessman. Olmsted called an impromptu meeting of the Yosemite Commission to present a draft of his final recommendations. Olmsted may also have invited the Speaker of the House and the journalists to attend, for he would want to address such a distinguished audience. (Bowles did cover the Yosemite Commission in the Springfield Republican.)

  Olmsted began his presentation by describing the scenery of the valley. He emphasized that the effect on the visitor did not reside in any single feature—the cliffs, waterfalls, meadows, or streams. “The union of the deepest sublimity with the deepest beauty of nature, not in one feature or another, not in one part or one scene or another, not any landscape that can be framed by itself, but all around and wherever the visitor goes, constitutes the Yo Semite the greatest glory of nature,” he explained. This was his first point: Yosemite consisted of a series of linked experiences. These had to be preserved in their entirety.

  The wealthy classes in Euro
pe and elsewhere had always reserved for themselves the places of greatest scenic beauty; in a democracy this could not be allowed to happen, he said. The first aim of the Commission was to ensure that Yosemite and the Big Tree Grove did not fall into private hands. However, that was not enough, he argued. “It is necessary that they should be laid open to the use of the body of the people.” This was his second point: Yosemite should be made easily accessible to the public.

  He proposed the construction of a forty-mile-long stagecoach road to link Galen’s ranch with the town of Mariposa, and to provide access to the Big Tree Grove. He had already had a survey of the road prepared. It followed a scenic route that would provide vistas and interesting views and included campsites. He recommended that a narrow carriage road should go up one side of the valley itself and return on the other. There would be turnouts and resting spots at frequent intervals. (This is, in fact, what exists in Yosemite today.) He assumed that most people would be camping but recommended the construction of five cabins that would be let to tenants with the provision that one room be reserved as a free resting place for visitors. Tents and camping gear would be available for rental; the prices for provisions would be controlled by the Commission.

  Olmsted had no illusion about the number of future visitors. “It is but sixteen years since the Yosemite was first seen by a white man, several visitors have since made a journey of several thousand miles at large cost to see it, and notwithstanding the difficulties which now interpose, hundreds resort to it annually,” he wrote in the report. “Before many years, if proper facilities are offered, these hundreds will become thousands and in a century the whole number of visitors will be counted by millions.” His estimate was almost exactly correct; annual attendance at Yosemite Valley and the Mariposa Big Tree Grove first surpassed 1 million in 1954.

  Olmsted was aware of the financial benefits of mass tourism; he referred to Switzerland and Bavaria as successful examples. Yet his prime motive in opening up this natural area to the public was not economic. Modern environmentalists often perceive a conflict between the preservation of wilderness and the demands of recreation. For Olmsted, recreation—or rather, re-creation—was paramount. When he discussed the recuperative power of natural scenery, he literally meant healing. He believed that the contemplation of nature, fresh air, and the change of everyday habits improved people’s health and intellectual vigor. “The enjoyment of scenery employs the mind without fatigue and yet exercises it, tranquilizes it and yet enlivens it; and thus, through the influence of the mind over the body, gives the effect of refreshing rest and reinvigoration of the whole system.”

  Years earlier, Olmsted had envisioned Central Park as a surrogate Adirondack landscape where ordinary people could get away from their urban surroundings. Now he described Yosemite—a real wilderness—as a kind of public park, indeed, a national park.1 Yosemite opened his eyes to an exciting new possibility: the experience of scenery, whether man-made or natural, could be a powerful civilizing force. This important insight undoubtedly arose from his recent writing about American society as well as his visits to the valley. The two strands of thought that had been preoccupying him for more than a decade finally came together. It is an important moment: he has realized that he might combine his interests in social reform and landscaping. This discovery could not have come at a more opportune time. As he was writing his book and working on the Yosemite report, he was also debating with Calvert Vaux—and with himself—about whether he should return to New York to resume his landscaping career.

  • • • •

  The debate had started six months earlier when Olmsted was in San Francisco dealing with the Estate creditors. Vaux had written to him about a new park—in Brooklyn. Several years before Brooklyn had purchased land and hired none other than Egbert Viele, late of Central Park, to prepare the plan. Although his design had been approved, the outbreak of war had interrupted further progress. The board of park commissioners was headed by James S. T. Stranahan, a former state congressman and a wealthy building contractor. Stranahan had been instrumental in commissioning Viele but now had doubts about the unimaginative plan. Seeking a second opinion, he had contacted Vaux.

  Vaux accompanied Stranahan to the site on the outskirts of the city. He observed two major liabilities. One was Flatbush Avenue, which divided the park in two. The other was the city reservoir that stood on the smaller of the two parcels. On the spot, Vaux suggested a clever alternative: sell the awkwardly shaped smaller parcel and buy land on the other side of the avenue. This would create one large, continuous tract of about five hundred acres—half again as large as the original proposal. Viele planned only a small pond; Vaux’s proposal could accommodate a real lake. He shrewdly pointed out that at forty acres it would be twice as large as the lake in Central Park. Stranahan seemed to like the idea, Vaux wrote excitedly in his letter. It appeared likely that Viele would, once again, be thwarted.

  Olmsted was impressed. “Your plans [Vaux had included a sketch] are excellent, of course, you don’t play with it but go at once to the essential starting points, and I hope the Commissioners are wise enough to comprehend it.” Yet he was not enthusiastic about Vaux’s suggestion that they work together on the park. He assured Vaux that much as he would like to do it, it was impossible. His health was poor, and he was liable to suffer a breakdown at any time. He had to think of his family; he did not believe that landscape gardening could provide him with a decent living.

  This was the time when Olmsted, alone in San Francisco, was in the depths of his depression. Vaux must have sensed this, for he ignored the rejection. Four months later he wrote that Viele’s plan had been set aside and the state legislature had approved the purchase of additional land for the projected park. Stranahan had not made any firm offer but he was “nibbling.” “Never say die,” Vaux wrote, “we may have some fun together yet.” Two days later he sent a second, longer letter in which he stated: “I shall tell [the Brooklyn park commission] that I intend to ask you to go into it with me anyway & I will write to you what bargain I make.” In an attempt to assuage Olmsted’s financial worries, Vaux wrote that they had a slight chance of being rehired as consultants to Central Park.

  Olmsted, now back in Bear Valley, replied. He confessed that he felt himself deficient in botany and gardening and resisted being called an artist, as Vaux had done in his last letter. He admitted that Central Park was dear to him: “There is no other place in the world that is as much home to me. I love it all through & all the more for the trials it has cost me.” Yet he remained immovable. “I should like very well to go into the Brooklyn park, or anything else—if I really believed I could get a decent living out of it—but in landscape work in general I never had any ground for supposing that I could. You used to argue that I might hope to—that’s all. I could never see it.” This was not altogether unreasonable on Olmsted’s part since he would have to rely entirely on landscape work for his income, whereas Vaux had his architectural practice.

  Vaux was doing his best to convince his ex-partner, but he was laboring under a severe constraint. Communication was maddeningly slow. The telegraph was useful only for brief messages—and it often broke down. It took two or even three months for letters to make the round-trip. Undeterred, Vaux wrote letter after letter, not waiting for answers. He wrote on May 10 and 12. On May 20 he advised Olmsted that he had decided not to mention him to the board until Olmsted had made a firm decision. The commissioners wanted a plan by the end of the year, so Olmsted still had plenty of time to make up his mind. On May 22 the flurry of letters continued. This time, Vaux wrote about Central Park. Green appeared to be in trouble. He had asked Vaux to return to the park. Vaux had insisted on a formal request from the board and added that he would have to consult Olmsted. Things were coming to a head.

  At the end of June, Olmsted was still undecided. “Mr. Vaux has made me a handsome offer to return and help him lay out the Brooklyn park,” he informed his employee Miller, “but I cannot leav
e California at present.” On July 31 Olmsted received yet another letter from Vaux, dated June 3. It contained Vaux’s strongest plea yet. He asserted again that Olmsted’s true vocation lay in the world of landscape art, not administration. He reminded Olmsted of their fruitful partnership. Vaux admitted that he would never have entered the Central Park competition alone because of his “incapacity.” “I feel it no less—I will not say no less, but very little less—now, and enter on Brooklyn alone with hesitation and distrust not on the roads & walks or even planting, which Pilat would have to attend to but in regard to the main point—the translation of the republican art idea in its highest form into the acres we want to control.” For the proud Vaux, this was a heartfelt admission.

  Olmsted was touched by Vaux’s candor. He wrote a reply the next day. “If I don’t wholly adopt or agree with all you say, at least I respect it very thoroughly and feel that I have not altogether done justice to your position heretofore,” he admitted. Olmsted agreed that what they had done in Central Park—and what he himself was doing in California—was much more than horticulture. It was art. It was, however, a particular kind of art. At one point he referred to it as “sylvan art.” “The art is not gardening nor is it architecture,” he wrote. It was certainly not “landscape architecture.” “If you are bound to establish this new art,” he wrote Vaux, “you don’t want an old name for it.”2