Title

A clearing in the distance : Frederick Law Olmsted and America in the nineteenth century

Description

In a collaboration between writer and subject, the author of Home and City life illuminates Frederick Law Olmsted's role as a major cultural figure and a man at the epicenter of nineteenth-century American history. "We know Olmsted through the physical legacy of his stunning landscapes - among them, New York's Central Park, California's Stanford University campus, Boston's Back Bay Fens, Illinois's Riverside community, Asheville's Biltmore Estate, and Louisville's park system." "Olmsted's contemporaries knew a man of even more diverse talents. Born in 1822, he traveled to China on a merchant ship at the age of twenty-one. He cofounded The Nation magazine and was an early voice against slavery. He wrote books about the South and about his exploration of the Texas frontier. He managed California's largest gold mine and, during the Civil War, served as general secretary to the United States Sanitary Commission, the precursor of the Red Cross."--Jacket.

Identifier

995602

684824639

Creator

Rybczynski, Witold

Source

Brian Lamb Booknotes Collection

Gift of Brian Lamb, 2011.

Catalog record

Language

eng

Date

1999

Program air date: October 17, 1999

Publisher

Scribner

George Mason University. Libraries. Special Collections & Archives

Text

Transcription of Annotations
Notes on front endpapers provide biographical information on Olmsted, his mother's early death, his brother John's dying of TB, and Olmsted's subsequent marriage to John's widow Mary, their four children, his love of books, his interest in farming, and his entering into politics. Other notes refer to Central Park, the largest public works project employing 3600 workers in 1888, the public competition for the design of the park which was won by Olmsted and Calvert Vaux, and Olmsted's being hired as the superintendent of the park. The notes also mention Olmsted's trip to England in 1879, his views on slavery, his failing health, and include a list of Vignettes in the book describing various locations which include Olmsted's words, but imagine his thoughts and feelings. Also included is a list of events explaining why "Olmsted was lucky", his role as General Secretary of the Sanitary Commission, the precursor of the Red Cross, and notes regarding the deaths of his father, his friends Charles Brace and Henry Sargent Codman, and of two of his sons, and Olmsted's involvement with the Chicago World's Fair in 1893. -- Back endpapers list the photographs that precede each chapter, include biographical information on the author, mention the importance of Andrew Jackson Downing who first published Olmsted in "The horticulturist" in 1841, the significance of Olmsted's first trip to England with his brother John where he formed his ideas about rural scenery, Olmsted's design for Stanford, and his long career as associate editor and co-owner of "The Nation". -- Annotations by Brian Lamb in the margins and underlining of pertinent phrases throughout the book. -- Examples: p. 106: "Like most Northerners, Olmsted held contradictory ideas about slavery...."He supported emancipation, but he wanted gradual emancipation." -- p. 177: "It is one great purpose of the park to supply to the hundreds of thousands of tired workers, who have no opportunity to spend their summers in the country, a specimen of God's handiwork that shall be to them inexpensively, what a month or two in the White Mountains or the Adirondacks is, at great cost, to those in easier circumstances." -- p. 273: "Central Park is an impressive achievement for two neophytes, but it is the work of beginners. Its many different parts barely hold together - they are simply fitted into the awkward rectangle, side by side. There is no narrative thread." -- p. 372: "Stanford University: 8,000 acres, $30 million, in honor of a deceased 15 yr. old son."

Subject

"Olmsted, Frederick Law, 1822-1903."

"Landscape architects--United States--Biography."

"Landscape architecture--United States--History--19th century."

Relation

Original Booknotes interview

Rights

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