frederick law olmsted writings on landscape culture and society

His southern travels and friendship with exiled participants in the failed German revolutions of 1848 convinced him of the need for the United States to demonstrate the superiority of republican government and free labor. From his New England heritage he drew a belief in community and the importance of public institutions of culture and education. Thus it was that by the time he began work as a landscape architect, Olmsted had developed a set of social and political values that gave special purpose to his design work. He spent six months of this time living in London with considerable travel on the Continent, and in the process visited many public parks. During this period he used his literary activities to oppose the westward expansion of slavery and to argue for the abolition of slavery by the southern states.įrom 1855 to 1857 he was partner in a publishing firm and managing editor of Putnam's Monthly Magazine, a leading journal of literature and political commentary. That December he began the first of two journeys through the slaveholding south as a reporter for the New York Times.īetween 18 he published three volumes of travel accounts and social analysis of the South. In 1852 he published his first book, Walks and Talks of an American Farmer in England. In 1850 he and two friends took a six-month walking tour of Europe and the British Isles, during which he saw numerous parks and private estates, as well as scenic countryside. He studied surveying and engineering, chemistry, and scientific farming, and ran a farm on Staten Island from 1848 to 1855.

He worked in a New York dry-goods store and took a year-long voyage in the China Trade. He spent the next twenty years gathering experiences and skills from a variety of endeavors that he eventually utilized in creating the profession of landscape architecture. As he was about to enter Yale College in 1837, Olmsted suffered severe sumac poisoning, which weakened his eyes and kept him from the usual course of studies.

His father, a successful dry-goods merchant, was a lover of scenery, and much of Olmsted's vacation time was spent with his family on 'tours in search of the picturesque' through northern New England and upstate New York. His mother died when he was four, and from the age of seven he received his schooling mostly from ministers in outlying towns, with whom he lived.

Landscape Architect, Author, Conservationist (1822–1903)įrederick Law Olmsted was born in Hartford, Connecticut, a member of the eighth generation of his family to live in that city.

Frederick law olmsted writings on landscape culture and society