The Genie of the Place – The Life of Frederick Law Olmsted

The gift of artistic vision on the great stage of life is rare. When viewed, it is so overwhelming that few can appreciate its impact for years to come.

Such was the man, Frederick Law Olmstead, the founder of landscape architecture in the United States, designer of Central Park and many other important parks, communities and schools.

By today’s educational and academic standards, Olmsted was a “self-made man” with little formal education. Raised on a farm and barely supervised by several schoolteachers, Olmsted was free to roam the grounds and explore his grandmother’s collection of books. At the age of nine, Olmsted supplemented his erratic education with the consumption of works such as Oliver Goldsmith’s The Vicar of Wakefield and Laurence Sterne’s Sentiment Journey Through France and Italy.

His curiosity about life contributed to his love of nature and adventure. His quest to learn about the world and longing to travel also presented challenges that no one could have stopped him from exploring. Olmsted was a determined person who kept his own advice.

As is often the case with exceptional talent, determination and vision can override more socially acceptable characteristics. Fortunately for all of us, Olmsted’s skills and talents had shown through any personality flaws that might have dismantled his success.

Surprisingly, New York’s Central Park was Olmsted’s first architectural landscape project. His official position for the task was as a superintendent to oversee the dismantling work of the former gardens scattered throughout the city.

The park project came at a time when cities were expanding rapidly and interest in creating more hospitable communities was growing across the country. Manhattan’s population more than doubled from the 1840s to the 1860s, from 300,000 to almost 800,000. The demand for open spaces and quiet lots increased as more people moved to the city.

The cry for open space in the 19th century was heard across the country. James Gordon Bennett in the New York Herald compared a park to a pair of lungs when he wrote: “There are no lungs on the island. It is composed entirely of veins and arteries.”

The dismantling and cleanup of the park’s previous 17 separate locations was not without controversy and heartbreak for many. Local businesses and unwanted manufacturing plants, such as bone-boiling plants that processed animal carcasses to create glue to match manufacturers, inhabited most of the 700 acres of land. There were impoverished immigrants crammed into one-room cabins. Some had formed communities called Dutch Hill and Dublin Corners.

They all had to go. It was accomplished by eminent domain, the first time in United States history that this principle was used to create a large park. The city earmarked money to pay the squatters.
Although Olmstead was the superintendent of the park, at the time he had no official position as a designer. Andrew Jackson Downing with his partner, Calvert Vaux, was the original force behind the park. Downing and Vaux were to submit a design for the park.

In 1852 Downing was killed in a riverboat accident, and Vaux asked Olmsted to take his place. In 1858, they entered the competition to design the park with an entry they named Greensward, which was chosen as the design for the park. Vaux and Olmsted continued to be partners on many projects from time to time over the years.

Vaux was an architect, a skill that was a perfect complement to Olmsted’s more aesthetic eye.

In the chapters that follow, Martin’s attention to detail is impressive. He describes Olmsted’s vision and plans with great clarity and his eye for balance. Martin’s skill is exceptional in describing Olmsted’s layout with a path here, a willow tree there, and a mound rising to soften the landscape there.

Martin takes the reader through the painstaking political process that almost brought down the entire project as envisioned by Olmsted and Vaux and was ultimately approved. The reader joins Olmsted’s life of travels, missions, and projects throughout the world and the United States. Olmsted left his mark on many iconic locations across the United States, both public and private, including Prospect Park in Brooklyn, New York, Stanford University in California, and Niagara Falls State Reserve. The entire list is deep.

The biography is a comprehensive journal of the life of Frederick Law Olmsted written with great precision and exhaustive historical specifications. However, these elements don’t get in the way of a well-told story. Indeed, Martin’s respect for history only enriches the experience of reading a biography that reaches beyond the narrow life of one individual to encompass a century of lifestyle, politics, and personal relationships.

Highly recommended.