Some twenty or thirty years later, the arch is beginning to be hidden by the vegetation. Architecture always took second place in Olmsted’s parks.
By the early 1900s, the arcadian illusion is complete. New Yorkers of all ages, classes, and races gather in a meadow.
Lawrenceville School, New Jersey
Frederick Law Olmsted’s landscaping practice included not only public parks, but also civic buildings, suburban subdivisions, private residences, and universities. In 1883, he began designing a new campus for Lawrenceville School.
The focus of the school is the Circle, shown here in 1885, shortly after completion. Olmsted’s design intention is hardly visible in this bare landscape. He incorporated a few existing large trees into his design.
This photograph, taken about 1896, shows Olmsted’s vision of a New England village green starting to emerge.
By the 1950s, the school buildings are almost entirely hidden among the trees.
WITOLD RYBCZYNSKI is the author of fourteen books, including The Perfect House, Home: A Short History of an Idea, City Life, and My Two Polish Grandfathers. The Martin and Margy Meyerson Professor of Urbanism at the University of Pennsylvania, he has written for The Atlantic, The New Yorker, The New York Times, and Slate.com.
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NOTES
ABBREVIATIONS
FLOP: Frederick Law Olmsted Papers, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.
JCOC: John C. Olmsted Collection, Frances Loeb Library, Graduate School of Design, Harvard University.
SCHEMES
Chapter One: “Tough as nails”
“a vigorous, manly fellow . . . ”: Frederick J. Kingsbury, “Biographical fragment,” c. 1904, FLOP.
“His face is generally very placid . . . ”: Katharine Prescott Wormeley, The Other Side of War; with the Army of the Potomac. Letters from the Headquarters of the United States Sanitary Commission during the Peninsular Campaign in Virginia in 1862 (Boston: Ticknor & Company, 1889), 63.
“All the lines of his face . . . ”: Letters of Charles Eliot Norton, ed. Sara Norton and M. A. DeWolfe Howe (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1913), 264.
“They tried a mob . . . ”: Frederick Law Olmsted to John Olmsted, March 11, 1864, FLOP.
“He is an extraordinary fellow, . . . ”: George Templeton Strong, Diary of the Civil War, 1860–1865, ed. Allan Nevins (New York: Macmillan, 1962), 304.
“He looks far ahead, . . . ”: Henry Whitney Bellows to James Miller McKim, August 18, 1865, Henry Whitney Bellows Papers, Massachusetts Historical Society, Boston.
“the main object . . . ”: Frederick Law Olmsted to Montgomery Cunningham Meigs, August 2, 1870, FLOP.
“nursery rows could be planted . . . ”: Ibid.
Chapter Two: Frederick goes to school
“When I was three years old . . . ”: Frederick Law Olmsted, “Autobiographical fragment,” undated, FLOP.
“He was at bottom . . . ”: Frederick Law Olmsted to John Charles Olmsted, January 29, 1873, FLOP.
local eminence . . .: see Richard Hofstadter, The Age of Reform: From Bryan to F.D.R. (New York: Random House, 1955), 135.
“prayed to God . . . ”: Frederick Law Olmsted, “Autobiographical fragment,” undated, FLOP.
One biographer has suggested . . .: see Charles Capen McLaughlin, “His Life Work,” The Papers of Frederick Law Olmsted, Vol. I, The Formative Years 1822–1852, ed. Charles Capen McLaughlin (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1977), 4.
“I was active, . . . ”: Ibid., n. 8, 110.
Chapter Three: Hartford
“I was strangely uneducated, . . . ”: Frederick Law Olmsted, Landscape Architect, 1822–1903, ed. Frederick Law Olmsted Jr. and Theodora Kimball (New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1928), 69.
“I see certain advantages . . . ”: Frederick Law Olmsted to Frederick Newman Knapp, October 8, 1866, FLOP.
“A boy . . . who . . . ”: Ibid.
“the attention of his friends . . . ”: The Times, October 3, 1835.
“refinement of America”: see Richard L. Bushman, The Refinement of America: Persons, Houses, Cities (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1992).
“It is highly gratifying . . . ”: Connecticut Courant, September 25, 1832.
“The town is beautifully situated . . . ”: Charles Dickens, American Notes (New York: Oxford University Press, 1985), 66–69.
“It came to me after a time . . . ”: Frederick Law Olmsted, “Autobiographical fragment,” undated, FLOP.
“a notable influence . . . ”: Ibid.
“He was very fond . . . ”: Frederick J. Kingsbury, “Biographical fragment,” c. 1904, FLOP.
“I was but nine . . . ”: Frederick Law Olmsted to Mariana Griswold Van Rensselaer, June 17, 1893, FLOP.
Chapter Four: “I have no objection”
“the pupil of a topographical engineer, . . . ”: Frederick Law Olmsted, “Autobiographical fragment,” undated, FLOP.
“When fourteen I was laid up . . . ”: Ibid.
“Because of an accident . . . ”: Frederick Law Olmsted, Landscape Architect, 1822–1903, ed. Frederick Law Olmsted Jr. and Theodora Kimball (New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1928), 69.
“Advised to give up . . . ”: Ibid., 4.
“went to NYK . . . ”: John Olmsted, Family Record, Expense Memorandum Books, FLOP. This discrepancy is pointed out in Melvin Kalfus, “In Memory of Summer Days: The Mind and Work of Frederick Law Olmsted” (Ph.D. diss., New York University, 1988), appendix C, 623.
“fitting for college . . . ”: “Memorandum of ‘notable events in Fred’s life,’ from diary of John Olmsted with some additions (all as to dates later than 1857), by Mary Cleveland Olmsted,” undated, JCOC.
“If you will not go back . . . ”: John Olmsted to Frederick Law Olmsted, September 27, 1838, FLOP.
“I am very pleased . . . ”: John Olmsted to Frederick Law Olmsted, October 7, 1838, FLOP.
“decently restrained vagabond life, . . . ”: Frederick Law Olmsted, “Autobiographical fragment,” undated, FLOP.
“Please send us some . . . ”: Frederick Law Olmsted to John Hull Olmsted, July 7, 1840, FLOP.
Chapter Five: New York
“Placed at sixteen . . . ”: Mariana Griswold Van Rensselaer, “Frederick Law Olmsted,” Century Illustrated Monthly Magazine 46, no. 6 (October 1893): 861.
“perhaps being tired . . . ”: Frederick J. Kingsbury, “Biographical fragment,” c. 1904. FLOP.
“I have no recollection . . . ”: John Olmsted to Frederick Law Olmsted, September 27, 1838, FLOP.
“Bizarre and not very agreeable,”: Richard Reeves, American Journey: Traveling with Tocqueville in Search of Democracy in America (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1982), 315.
“commercial habits . . . ”: Alexis de Tocqueville, Journey to America, ed., J. P. Mayer, trans., George Lawrence (New York: Harper & Row, 1988), 203.
Estimates of loses . . .: Hawthorne Daniel, The Hartford of Hartford (New York: Random House, 1960), 74.
“Oh, how I long to be . . . ”: Frederick Law Olmsted to Mary Bull Olmsted, March 20, 1841, FLOP.
“The business is such that . . . ”: Frederick Law Olmsted to John Hull Olmsted, A
ugust 29, 1840, FLOP.
“Ally has the difficulty . . . ”: Frederick Law Olmsted to John Olmsted, March 16, 1865, FLOP.
Chapter Six: A year before the mast
“Ol will go to China . . . ”: Frederick Law Olmsted to John Hull Olmsted, December 7, 1842, FLOP.
“We must come down . . . ”: Richard Henry Dana Jr., Two Years Before the Mast: a personal narrative of life at sea (New York: World Syndicate Publishing Company, 1907), 279.
It is possible that Olmsted . . .: see Melvin Kalfus, “In Memory of Summer Days: The Mind and Work of Frederick Law Olmsted,” (Ph.D. diss., New York University, 1988), n. 22, 245.
“it might almost be true . . . ”: Frederick Law Olmsted to John Hull Olmsted, December 7, 1842, FLOP.
“It grieves me very much . . . ”: Frederick Law Olmsted to parents, August 6, 1843, FLOP.
“a sailor’s life is . . . ”: Richard Henry Dana Jr., Two Years Before the Mast: a personal narrative of life at sea (New York: World Syndicate Publishing Company, 1907), 39.
“After resting myself . . . ”: Frederick Law Olmsted to Maria Olmsted, November 30, 1843, FLOP.
“Home! home! . . . ”: Frederick Law Olmsted to John Olmsted, December 27, 1843, FLOP.
“A more discontented, . . . ”: Frederick Law Olmsted to parents, August 6, 1843, FLOP.
“much more cause . . . ”: Frederick Law Olmsted to John Olmsted, September 24, 1843, FLOP.
“It’s perfectly ridiculous . . . ”: Frederick Law Olmsted to John Hull Olmsted, December 10, 1843, FLOP.
Chapter Seven: Friends
“What a shivering idea . . . ”: Frederick Law Olmsted to Charles Loring Brace, August 4, 1844, FLOP.
“It’s no wonder you got . . . ”: Frederick Law Olmsted to John Hull Olmsted, May 31, 1844, FLOP.
“In study I am wonderfully . . . ”: Frederick Law Olmsted to Frederick J. Kingsbury, June 12, 1846, FLOP.
“The effect of the ice . . . ”: Frederick Law Olmsted to Abby Clark, January 18, 1845, FLOP.
“For myself, I have every reason . . . ”: Frederick Law Olmsted to Charles Loring Brace, June 22, 1845, FLOP.
“A most uncommon set . . . ”: The Life of Charles Loring Brace: Chiefly Told in His Own Letters, ed. Emma Brace (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1894), 27.
Chapter Eight: Farming
“I walked down in earnest . . . ”: Frederick Law Olmsted to Charles Loring Brace, February 5, 1846, FLOP.
“Had a good time, . . . ”: Ibid.
“right smack & square . . . ”: Frederick Law Olmsted to John Hull Olmsted, March 27, 1846, FLOP.
“You lifted me a good deal . . . ”: Frederick Law Olmsted to Elizabeth Wooster Baldwin, December 16, 1890, FLOP.
“Why, bless you, . . . ”: Frederick Law Olmsted to Charles Loring Brace, March 27, 1846, FLOP.
“This has been a good place . . . ”: Frederick Law Olmsted to Charles Loring Brace, July 30, 1846, FLOP.
“Does Miss (you know) . . . ”: Frederick Law Olmsted to Frederick J. Kingsbury, June 12, 1846, FLOP.
“You ask who Sara . . . ”: Frederick Law Olmsted to John Olmsted, July 1, 1846, FLOP.
“I will think and act right, . . . ”: Frederick Law Olmsted to Frederick J. Kingsbury, August 22, 1846, FLOP.
“So have we endeavored, . . . ”: Thomas Carlyle, Sartor Resartus (New York: Dent, Dutton, 1973), 219.
“Produce! Produce! . . . ”: Ibid., 148–49.
“the greatest genius . . . ”: Frederick Law Olmsted to John Olmsted, August 12, 1846, FLOP.
“Fred went off in great style . . . ”: John Hull Olmsted to Frederick J. Kingsbury, March 16, 1847, FLOP.
Inside, Olmsted sits . . .: Frederick Law Olmsted to Charles Loring Brace, October 12, 1847, FLOP.
“grossly licentious . . . ”: Joel Eliot Helander, Oxpasture to Summer Colony: The Story of Sachem’s Head in Guilford, Connecticut, (Guilford, Conn.: Joel E. Helander, 1976), 187.
“Do you think I shall . . . ”: Frederick Law Olmsted to Frederick J. Kingsbury, August 22, 1846, FLOP.
“Setting out bushes, . . . ”: Joel Eliot Helander, Oxpasture to Summer Colony: The Story of Sachem’s Head in Guilford, Connecticut, (Guilford, Conn.: Joel E. Helander, 1976), 190.
Chapter Nine: More farming
“I intend to set . . . ”: Frederick Law Olmsted, “Queries on Sea-Coast Agriculture,” The Horticulturist, August 1847: 100.
“Shall have a better . . . ”: Frederick Law Olmsted to Frederick J. Kingsbury, September 23, 1847, FLOP.
“make quite a pretty show . . . ”: Frederick Law Olmsted, Landscape Architect, 1822–1903, ed. Frederick Law Olmsted Jr. and Theodora Kimball (New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1928), 85.
“The farm generally pleases . . . ”: Frederick Law Olmsted to John Hull Olmsted, February 16, 1847, FLOP.
“There had been some vague . . . ”: John Hull Olmsted to Frederick J. Kingsbury, March 1848, FLOP.
“for the consideration . . . ”: Guilford Land Records, vol. 37, 181.
“Father bought it, . . . ”: John Hull Olmsted to Frederick J. Kingsbury, March 1848, FLOP.
“for the interest . . . ”: Frederick Law Olmsted to John Olmsted, March 12, 1860, FLOP.
Another letter makes . . .: see Broadus Mitchell, Frederick Law Olmsted: A Critic of the Old South (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1924), 54.
“Just wear your feet out, . . . ”: The Life of Charles Loring Brace: Chiefly Told in His Own Letters, ed. Emma Brace (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1894), 59.
“Just the thing . . . ”: Frederick Law Olmsted to Frederick J. Kingsbury, July 16, 1848, FLOP.
“Frederick was at this time . . . ”: Frederick Law Olmsted, Landscape Architect, 1822–1903, ed. Frederick Law Olmsted Jr. and Theodora Kimball (New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1928), 79.
“Thus, with a few strokes . . . ”: Ibid., 86.
developed as Seaside Estates . . .: Margaret Boyle-Cullen, “The Woods of Arden House,” The Staten Island Historian, April-June 1954: 15.
“We believe [the society] . . . ”: Frederick Law Olmsted, “Appeal to the Citizens of Staten Island,” December 1849, FLOP.
Chapter Ten: A walking tour in the old country
“In five years . . . ”: Frederick Law Olmsted to Frederick J. Kingsbury, October 14, 1848, FLOP
“He is in the direct . . . ”: John Hull Olmsted to Frederick J. Kingsbury, March 1848, FLOP.
“I want somebody . . . ”: Frederick Law Olmsted to Frederick J. Kingsbury, October 14, 1848, FLOP.
“Fred is reading Macaulay . . . ”: John Hull Olmsted to Frederick J. Kingsbury, February 10, 1849, FLOP.
“The Modern Painters improves . . . ”: Frederick Law Olmsted to John Hull Olmsted, February 10, 1849, FLOP.
“I have got very intimate . . . ”: Frederick Law Olmsted to John Hull Olmsted, February 24, 1849, FLOP.
“There are a lot of books . . . ”: Frederick Law Olmsted, Landscape Architect, 1822–1903, ed. Frederick Law Olmsted Jr. and Theodora Kimball (New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1928), 73.
“I exceedingly fear . . . ”: Frederick Law Olmsted to John Olmsted, March 1, 1850, FLOP.
he would spend about $300 . . .: Frederick Law Olmsted, Landscape Architect, 1822–1903, ed. Frederick Law Olmsted Jr. and Theodora Kimball (New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1928), 5.
“I did not mean . . . ”: Frederick Law Olmsted to John Olmsted, March 1, 1850, FLOP.
“two of the very greatest . . . ”: Ibid.
“There we were . . . ”: Frederick Law Olmsted, Walks and Talks of an American Farmer in England (Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan Press, 1967), 59.
“A gentle undulating . . . ”: Ibid., 97.
JOSTLING AND BEING JOSTLED
Chapter Eleven: Mr. Downing’s magazine
“American education . . . ”: Lewis Mumford, “The Renewal of the Landscape,” The Brown Decades (New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1931), 85.
“I began life as a
. . . ”: Frederick Law Olmsted, Landscape Architect, 1822–1903, ed. Frederick Law Olmsted Jr. and Theodora Kimball (New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1928), 83.
“Everybody at home . . . ”: Frederick Law Olmsted to Charles Loring Brace, November 12, 1850, FLOP.
“I am disappointed . . . ”: Frederick Law Olmsted to Charles Loring Brace, January 11, 1851, FLOP.
“I was glad to observe . . . ”: Frederick Law Olmsted, “The People’s Park at Birkenhead, near Liverpool,” The Horticulturist, May 1851: 225–26.
Downing wrote a lead essay, . . .: Andrew Jackson Downing, “The New-York Park,” The Horticulturist, August 1851: 345–49.
“gardening had here reached a perfection . . . ”: Frederick Law Olmsted, “The People’s Park at Birkenhead, near Liverpool,” The Horticulturist, May 1851: 225.
“Suspicious, distrustful, often . . . ”: Frederick Law Olmsted, “A Voice from the Sea,” American Whig Review 14, December 1851: 526.
Chapter Twelve: Olmsted falls in love and finishes his book
“I doubt if I shall . . . ”: Frederick Law Olmsted to Charles Loring Brace, January 11, 1851, FLOP.
“upon intimate acquaintance . . . ”: Ellen K. Rothman, Hands and Heart: A History of Courtship in America (New York: Basic Books, 1984), 111–12.
“moments of indifference . . . ”: Karen Lystra, Searching the Heart: Women, Men, and Romantic Love in Nineteenth-Century America (New York: Oxford University Press, 1989), 181.
Men considered the engagement . . .: Ellen K. Rothman, Hands and Heart: A History of Courtship in America (New York: Basic Books, 1984), 157.
he met Emily . . .: Mary Cleveland Olmsted, “Biographical fragment,” undated, FLOP.
“Pray tell me what . . . ”: John Olmsted to Sophia Hitchcock, October 28, 1851, Letters of Mrs. Page, Archives of American Art, National Collection of Fine Arts, Washington, D.C.
A Clearing In The Distance: Frederick Law Olmsted and America in the 19th Cent Page 48