Frederick Law Olmsted

Frederick Law Olmsted 1822-1903, American landscape architect and writer, b. Hartford, Conn. Although his Walks and Talks of an American Farmer in England had appeared in 1852, Olmsted first attained fame for journalistic accounts of his travels in the American South during the early 1850s. In these works, published in book form as A Journey in the Seaboard Slave States (1856), A Journey through Texas (1857), A Journey in the Back Country (1860), and Journeys and Explorations in the Cotton Kingdom (1861), he painted vivid pictures of the evils of slaveholding society. During the Civil War he served as secretary to the U.S. Sanitary Commission and pioneered various concepts of public health.

When Central Park in New York City was projected (1856), Olmsted and Calvert Vaux prepared the plan that was accepted two years later, and Olmsted superintended its execution. The well-planned public park was a new departure, which Olmsted developed in many other parks and cities, e.g., Prospect Park, Brooklyn, N.Y.; South Park, Chicago; Mt. Royal Park, Montreal; park systems in Buffalo and Boston; and the grounds of the Capitol, Washington, D.C. One of his most spectacular achievements was the laying out of the grounds for the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago, which he afterward redesigned as Jackson Park. Olmsted also took an interest in the creation of college campuses, e.g., Berkeley (1864), and state and national parks. In addition, he designed parkways and was involved in city planning.

His son, Frederick Law Olmsted, 1870-1957, b. Staten Island, N.Y., grad. Harvard, 1894, was also a landscape architect and city planner. He studied with his father and began practice in 1895. He taught (1900-1914) Harvard's first course in landscape architecture. As a city planner he served on many committees and government boards. In 1901 he was influential in the plan for beautifying Washington, D.C.

Bibliography: See F. L. Olmsted's Forty Years of Landscape Architecture: Central Park, ed. by F. L. Olmsted, Jr., and T. Kimball (1928, repr. 1973); The Papers of Frederick Law Olmsted, ed. by C. C. McLaughlin and C. E. Beveridge (5 vol., 1977-97); biographies of the elder Olmsted by L. W. Roper (1974) and W. Rybczynski (1999); studies by J. G. Fabos et al. (1968), E. Barlow (1972), and C. E. Beveridge and P. Rocheleau (1995).

Olmsted, Frederick Law (1822–1903), landscape architect.Born in Hartford, Connecticut, Olmsted farmed from 1847 to 1852 and then toured the South for the New York Times. Three books of description and analysis resulted: A Journey in the Seaboard Slave States (1856), A Journey through Texas (1857), and A Journey through the Backcountry (1860). Stressing slavery's adverse social effects, these works helped shape the ideology of the early Republican party. As editor of Putnam's Monthly Magazine (1855–1857), he opposed slavery and promoted American authors. In 1858, Olmsted and the architect Calvert Vaux won the design competition for New York City's Central Park, and Olmsted directed its construction. In 1861–1863, during the Civil War, he headed the U.S. Sanitary Commission, organizing camp inspections and relief distribution for the Union Army.

After the war, Olmsted with various partners carried out five hundred landscape design commissions. With Vaux he designed Brooklyn's Prospect Park, Washington and Jackson parks in Chicago, and a park system for Buffalo, New York. He subsequently designed Mount Royal Park in Montreal, Canada, and comprehensive park systems for Boston, Rochester, New York, and Louisville, Kentucky. Olmsted planned his urban parks so that they would have a restorative psychological effect, serving as an antidote to the artificiality of city life. His parks also promoted community by giving city dwellers a common meeting‐ground.

Beginning with Riverside, Illinois, in 1868, Olmsted planned suburban communities where extensive public open space preserved areas of natural scenery, while curvilinear streets and sidewalks provided special amenity. He and Vaux also developed the concept of the “parkway,” a wide, well‐paved and tree‐lined boulevard for non‐commercial traffic—the forerunner of the landscaped automobile parkway. A leader in scenic preservation, particularly at Yosemite valley and Niagara Falls, Olmsted also planned the site of Chicago's 1893 World's Columbian Exposition; the grounds and West Front terrace of the U.S. Capitol; the Stanford University campus; and Biltmore, the Vanderbilt estate in North Carolina.
See also Landscape Design; Leisure; Parks, Urban; Urbanization; World's Fairs and Expositions; Yosemite National Park.

Bibliography

Laura Wood Roper , FLO: A Biography, 1973.
Charles E. Beveridge and and Paul Rocheleau , Frederick Law Olmsted: Designing the American Landscape, 1995.

Charles E. Beveridge