A Clearing In The Distance: Frederick Law Olmsted and America in the 19th Cent
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A number of authors have written about specific Olmsted landscaping projects. Cynthia Zaitzevsky’s Frederick Law Olmsted and the Boston Park System (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1992) is an exemplary account that examines in admirable detail the working methods of the Olmsted firm. One does not have to agree with M. M. Graff’s criticisms of Olmsted (she is a Vaux fan) to find useful nuggets in Central Park, Prospect Park: A New Perspective (New York: Greensward Foundation, 1985). John M. Bryan’s Biltmore Estate: The Most Distinguished Private Place (New York: Rizzoli, 1994) provides an account of the building of this remarkable estate. Olmsted’s trials are recorded in The Founders and the Architects: The Design of Stanford University (Stanford: Stanford University, 1976) by Paul V. Turner. The garden at Fairsted is described in detail by Mac Griswold in “Fairsted: A Landscape as Olmsted’s Looking Glass” (Arnoldia, summer 1996). Viewing Olmsted (Montreal: Canadian Centre for Architecture, 1996), the catalog of a photographic exhibition, offers several evocative—and many unusually idiosyncratic—views of selected Olmsted parks by three well-known photographers.
A number of scholarly articles have dealt with Olmsted’s ideas about parks and landscaping, notably Geoffrey Blodgett’s “Frederick Law Olmsted: Landscape Architecture as Conservative Reform” (Journal of American History, March 1976), Laurie Olin’s “Form, Meaning and Expression in Landscape Architecture” (Landscape Journal, fall 1988), George L. Scheper’s “The Reformist Vision of Frederick Law Olmsted and the Poetics of Park Design” (The New England Quarterly, September 1989), and Anne Whiston Spirn’s “Constructing Nature: The Legacy of Frederick Law Olmsted” (in Uncommon Ground: Toward Reinventing Nature, ed. William Cronon, New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1995). It would be ungrateful of me not to mention the short essay that sparked my own interest in Olmsted, Roger Starr’s “The Motive Behind Olmsted’s Park” (The Public Interest, winter 1984).
An excellent introduction to Olmsted’s landscape work is Charles E. Beveridge’s lavishly illustrated Frederick Law Olmsted: Designing the American Landscape (New York: Rizzoli, 1995), whose beautiful photographs of parks and gardens by Paul Rocheleau are almost as good as being there. Almost, but not quite. When I started to think of writing about Olmsted, Laurie Olin told me, “Always look at the work first.” I have tried to follow his advice and have visited Mountain View Cemetery in Oakland, Central Park, Prospect Park, Mount Royal, Riverside, Boston’s Emerald Necklace, Fairstead in Brookline (now the Frederick Law Olmsted National Historic Site), Lawrenceville School, Smith College, Moraine Farm, and Biltmore Estate, as well as Hartford, Sachem’s Head, Staten Island, Fairstead (which is now a National Historical Site), Bear Valley, and Yosemite. Walking over the grounds that Olmsted shaped, experiencing the scenic views that he created, sitting under the trees that he planted, has been one of the added pleasures of writing this book.
A Selected List of Olmsted Projects
FREDERICK LAW OLMSTED AND CALVERT VAUX
1858–76
Central Park, New York, N.Y.
1860–74
Hartford Retreat for the Insane, Hartford, Conn.
1865
College of California, Berkeley, Calif.
1866
Columbia Institution for the Deaf and Dumb, Washington, D.C.
1865–95
Prospect Park, Brooklyn, N.Y.
1867
Seaside Park, Bridgeport, Conn.
1867–73
Cornell University, Ithaca, N.Y.
1867–86
Fort Greene Park, Brooklyn, N.Y.
1868
Parade Ground, King’s County, Brooklyn, N.Y.
1868
Tompkins Park, Brooklyn, N.Y.
1868–74
Eastern and Ocean Parkways, Brooklyn, N.Y.
1868–87
Riverside residential community, Ill.
1868–89
Riverside Park, New York, N.Y.
1868–1915
Delaware Park, The Parade, and The Front, Buffalo, N.Y.
1869–71
Walnut Hill Park, New Britain, Conn.
1870–72
Tarrytown Heights residential community, N.Y.
1870–95
South Park, Chicago, Ill.
1870–1914
South Park, Fall River, Mass.
1870–1920
Downing Park, Newburgh, N.Y.
1871
New York State Asylum for the Insane, Buffalo, N.Y.
1876–89
Morningside Park, New York, N.Y.
1879–95
State Reservation at Niagara Falls, N.Y.
FREDERICK LAW OLMSTED
1864–65
Mountain View Cemetery, Oakland, Calif.
1865–67
San Francisco Public Grounds, Calif.
1870–88
Staten Island Improvement Commission, Staten Island, N.Y.
1872–75
McLean Asylum grounds, Waverley, Mass.
1872–86
Parkside subdivision, Buffalo, N.Y.
1872–94
Trinity College, Hartford, Conn.
1873–93
Mount Royal Park, Montreal, Canada
1873
Tacoma Land Company, Tacoma, Wash.
1874–81
Yale University, New Haven, Conn.
1875–78
Twenty-Third & Twenty-Fourth Wards, New York, N.Y.
1875–94
U.S. Capitol grounds, Washington, D.C.
1878–1920
Back Bay Fens, Boston, Mass.
1879–97
Arnold Arboretum, Boston, Mass.
1880–93
Muddy River Improvement, Boston, Mass.
1881–84
Bridgeport Parks, Bridgeport, Conn.
1881–1895
Belle Isle, Detroit, Mich.
1881–1921
Franklin Park, Boston, Mass.
1883–1901
Lawrenceville School, Lawrenceville, N.J.
FREDERICK LAW OLMSTED WITH JOHN CHARLES OLMSTED AND HENRY SARGENT CODMAN (+1893)
1884–92
Brookline Hill subdivision, Brookline, Mass.
1886–1914
Stanford University, Palo Alto, Calif.
1886–90
Planter’s Hill and World’s End subdivision, Hingham, Mass.
1887–96
Wilmington Parks, Wilmington, Del.
1888–93
World’s Columbian Exposition, Chicago, Ill.
1890–95
Essex County Parks, Essex County, N.J.
1890–1906
National Zoological Park, Washington, D.C.
1890–1912
Genesee Valley Park, Rochester, N.Y.
1891–95
Louisville Parks, Louisville, Ken.
1891–1909
Biltmore Estate, Asheville, N.C.
1891–1909
Smith College, Northampton, Mass.
1892–94
Bloomingdale Asylum, White Plains, N.Y.
1892–1905
Druid Hills residential community, Atlanta, Ga.
1893–1895
Wood Island Park, Boston, Mass.
CHARLES ELIOT (+1897), JOHN CHARLES OLMSTED (+1920), AND FREDERICK LAW OLMSTED JR.
1895–99
Washington University, St. Louis, Mo.
1895–1912
Royal Victoria Hospital, Montreal, Canada
1895–1927
Bryn Mawr College, Bryn Mawr, Penn.
1896–1922
Mount Holyoke College, South Hadley, Mass.
1896–1932
Vassar College, Poughkeepsie, N.Y.
1897–1914
Roland Park, Baltimore, Md.
1897–1924
Audubon Park, New Orleans, La.
1900–06
Brown University, Providence, R.I.
1901–1910
University o
f Chicago, Chicago, Ill.
1901–1930
Seattle Parks, Seattle, Wash.
1902–12
Williams College, Williamstown, Mass.
1902–20
University of Washington, Seattle, Wash.
1903
Lewis and Clark Exposition, Portland, Oreg.
1903–19
Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Md.
1904–05
Portland Parks, Portland, Me.
1906–08
Spokane Parks, Spokane, Wash.
1907–21
New Haven Improvement Commission, New Haven, Conn.
1908–25
Boulder Improvement Association, Boulder, Co.
1909
Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Exposition, Seattle, Wash.
1909–12
Battery Park, Charleston, S.C.
1909–31
Forest Hills Gardens residential community, Queens, N.Y.
1909–31
Pittsburgh Civic Commission, Pittsburgh, Penn.
1910–11
Dayton Parks, Dayton, Oh.
1911
San Diego Exposition, San Diego, Calif.
1912–13
Newport City Improvement, Newport, R.I.
1914–31
Rancho Palos Verdes residential community, Palos Verdes, Calif.
1925–26
Philadelphia Sesquicentennial Exposition, Philadelphia, Penn.
1925–31
Harvard Business School, Cambridge, Mass.
1925–32
Haverford College, Haverford, Penn.
1925–65
Duke University, Durham, N.C.
1927–35
Fort Tryon Park, New York, N.Y.
1929–32
Notre Dame University, South Bend, Ind.
1932–33
Morris Arboretum, Philadelphia, Penn.
According to the invaluable The Master List of Design Projects of the Olmsted Firm 1857–1950 (Boston: Massachusetts Association for Olmsted Parks, 1987), “between 1857 and 1950 the firm participated in some way in 5,500 projects.”
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I am grateful to the following for their advice, help, and useful counsel: Amy Brown, Tom Comitta, Paula Deitz, Jeremiah Eck, Drew Faust, Arleyn A. Levee, Ian McHarg, Rollins Maxwell, Henry Hope Reed, William Rawn, and especially Laurie Olin. Eva Burns, M.D., thoughtfully offered a psychiatrist’s perspective. Jace Gaffney kindly suggested what became the title of this book. William Alex of the Frederick Law Olmsted Association was gracious with his time. Several people generously showed me around Olmsted works: Tupper Thomas, Administrator, and Christian Zimmerman, Landscape Architect, of the Prospect Park Alliance; Frances G. Beatty, Senior Landscape Architect of Boston Parks & Recreation; George and Mimi Batchelder of Moraine Farm; and Michael S. Cary, Head Master of Lawrenceville School.
Libraries and librarians are always helpful, but I would like to single out Mary Daniels, Special Collections Librarian of the Frances Loeb Library of the Harvard University Graduate School of Design, for guiding me through the John C. Olmsted Collection. Helpful, too, were: Marilyn M. Love, archivist of Lawrenceville School; Deborah Husted Koshinsky of the Architecture and Planning Library, SUNY Buffalo; Cynthia Van Ness of the Buffalo and Erie County Public Library; and the staff of Interlibrary Loans of the Van Pelt Library of the University of Pennsylvania. During the long writing of the book I was able to count on the helpful assistance of several able research assistants: Kate Howarth, Kiet Ta, Phuc Tran, Jason Kim, and David Bagnoli. Shawn Seaman skillfully drew the plans of Olmsted projects.
Alexandra Truitt did an outstanding job researching photographic material. Steve Boldt is a copy editor par excellence. Iris Tupholme and Nicole Langlois at HarperCollins in Toronto were helpful. Susan Moldow of Scribner was as supportive a publisher as one could ever hope to have. My editor, Nan Graham, can discuss ideas and parse sentences with equal enthusiasm—and skill. Carl Brandt lent his attentive agent’s ear. John Lukacs generously took time off from his own writing to review mine. My wife knows how much this book owes to her, so I will only say, “Thank you, Shirley.”
Frederick Law Olmsted’s father owned a dry-goods store in Hartford, Connecticut. The small-town Main Street, shown here in 1863, had not changed much since Olmsted’s youth, except for the streetcar lines. The store was halfway down the street, on the right side of the photograph.
Bustling South Street in New York, where as a young clerk in 1840, Olmsted went on board sailing ships to tally cargo for the importing house of Benkard & Hutton.
The twenty-one-year-old Olmsted sailed to China as an ordinary seaman on a merchant ship. He reached Whampoa, the port of Canton, but only managed to go ashore three times.
Olmsted witnessed more than one slave-whipping while traveling in the South as a correspondent for the New-York Daily Times. His book, A Journey in the Seaboard Slave States, in which this illustration appears, was published in 1856.
This engraving from the 1857 edition of Olmsted’s A Journey Through Texas is based on one of his sketches. It shows him and his brother, John, camping in west Texas. They named the bull terrier Judy; the pack mule, Mr. Brown.
During the Civil War, Olmsted was secretary general of the United States Sanitary Commission, which operated field hospitals, dispensaries, and hospital ships and employed scores of surgeons, nurses, and health inspectors. Of his women volunteers, Olmsted said: “They beat the doctors all to pieces.”
Oso House, in Bear Valley, on the California frontier, astride the Mother Lode. Olmsted spent two years here managing the vast Mariposa Estate, a gold-mining operation. The stagecoach carried people and mail to the closest large town, eighty miles away.
John C. Olmsted took this family photograph in July 1885. Olmsted, wearing a pith helmet, is flanked by his two children, Marion and Rick; his wife, Mary, is leaning against the tree. The two women on the right are unidentified guests.
Frederick Law Olmsted, circa 1890. “What a good ancient philosopher you look like!” exclaimed his friend Charles Eliot Norton.
Shy and diffident, Olmsted’s stepson, John C. Olmsted, became a partner in F. L. & J. C. Olmsted, Landscape Architects. He played a major role in the design of the Emerald Necklace, Boston’s extensive park system.
Visitors to Chicago’s World’s Columbian Exposition of 1893, looking down from the roof of the Manufactures and Liberal Arts building at the basin that was the focus of the Court of Honor. Olmsted picked the site beside Lake Michigan and planned the fairgrounds.
The builders of Biltmore. On the left, behind Olmsted, is the architect, Richard Morris Hunt; on the right, the young client, George W. Vanderbilt.
Frederick and Mary Olmsted at Biltmore Estate in the early 1890s, not long before he withdrew from active practice. Olmsted not only designed the gardens and parkland surrounding the house, but also established an extensive, scientifically-managed forest.
Fairstead, Olmsted’s home and office in Brookline, Massachusetts. “Less wildness and disorder I object to,” he once said of his garden.
It was in McLean Asylum, in Waverly, Massachusetts, whose grounds he had earlier designed, that Olmsted spent his final years.
Central Park, New York
It takes decades to realize the landscape architect’s vision. Patience and long-sightedness were among Olmsted’s chief qualities.
The freshly graded Mall in 1863, shortly after completion with rows of American elm saplings.
The Mall in 1894. The green canopy forms a solid archway over the promenade.
The Terrace in 1863, still under construction.
The completed Terrace in the 1880s, the fully-grown trees forming a solid backdrop. The Bethesda Fountain, a symbol of healing, was added after the end of the Civil War. The gondola is Venetian.
The Terrace in the 1920s, as popular as ever, even though the fountain is not running.
The site of Central Park consisted of
rocky outcroppings and swampy lowland. The meadows, woods, and lakes, which Olmsted imagined as a poor-man’s substitute for Adirondack scenery, are entirely man-made.
Winter, 1866. The surroundings, visible through the sparse vegetation, are largely rural. The lake was hurriedly completed and ice-skating quickly became a popular pastime.
Winter, c. 1890. The trees hide the adjacent city, except for the newly built Dakota apartment house.
In the early 1860s, the new landscape is still bare. The Marble Arch, which no longer exists, was the chief pedestrian entrance to the Mall.