January 14, 2022
Frederick Law Olmsted, Sr.
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We had a wonderful first Free Author Event with Gail Ward Olmsted. She gave an interesting presentation on Frederick Law Olmsted and the "Olmsted Effect", which highlighted some amazing facts about the father of landscape architecture and the beautiful parks and outdoor spaces he, and later his sons, helped to create.
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Frederick Law Olmsted, Sr.
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Personal Life
Frederick Law Olmsted was born in Hartford, CT in 1822, making this year, 2022, the 200th anniversary of his birth. He briefly attended Yale in 1837 but a severe case of sumac poisoning weakened his eyes and he had to withdraw.
He married his late brother's widow, Mary and adopted her three young children (his nephews and niece), John Charles, Charlotte and Owen. Frederick and Mary were married for 40 years and had two children who survived infancy, Marion and Frederick Law, Jr.
Toward the end of his life, Olmsted went to McLean Hospital in Belmont, MA, after showing signs of dementia. He had previously submitted designs for the grounds of McLean, but they were not implemented. |
| Portrait of Frederick Law Olmsted, 1893, engraved by T. Johnson; from a photograph by James Notman.
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His Professional Career(s)
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Although best known for creating the profession of landscape architecture, Olmsted had several different careers over the course of his lifetime. He was a farmer, merchant, and author. His first book, Walks and Talks of an American Farmer in England, was the result of a six-month walking tour of Europe and the British Isles.
He was a reporter for the New York Times, traveling throughout the slave holding South, documenting his travels and the injustices of slavery. From 1855 to 1860, he was a partner in a publishing firm, managing editor of Putnam's Monthly Magazine, and published 3 volumes about his travels in the South. All of this, before he began work designing Central Park.
In 1858, Olmsted and Calvert Vaux, won a competition to design Central Park. In the middle of the project the Civil War broke out and Olmsted felt a strong desire to contribute to the war effort. He resigned from his work on Central Park and became director of the U.S. Sanitary Commission, where he oversaw the health and camp sanitation of the soldiers of the Union Army. He also used his administrative skills to create an organized distribution system of medical supplies for those troops. After leaving his position with the federal government, he applied those same administrative skills to managing a gold mine in California, before returning in 1865 to New York City to finish work on Central Park with Vaux.
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The Father of Landscape Architecture
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Over the next 30 years, Olmsted would design parks and parkways, college campuses, private estates and suburban communities. He also designed the grounds of a wide variety of buildings such as libraries, churches, hospitals and asylums.
During the later period of his life, he was joined in his work by his sons, John Charles Olmsted and Frederick Law Olmsted, Jr., and during some periods, his wife, Mary Perkins Olmsted, who served as amanuensis.
"We want a ground to which people may easily go after their day’s work is done, and where they may stroll for an hour, seeing, hearing and feeling nothing of the bustle and jar of the streets, where they shall, in effect, find the city put far away from them.”- Frederick Law Olmsted, 1870
There are many places in Connecticut to explore Olmsted, and his sons, designs.
Walnut Hill Park in New Britain, CT and Hartford Retreat, now known as the Institute for Living in Hartford, CT, are examples of Olmsted, Sr. earlier work, where as Edgewood Park in New Haven, CT and Hubbard Park in Meriden, CT, are examples of the later work of his sons.
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Thank You to Author Gail Ward Olmsted
for helping us to fulfill our mission of bringing history and nature alive!
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Please forward this email to anyone who might be interested. |
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