A contextual history of Massachusetts' Olmsted National Historic Site

Cover -- Title Page -- Copyright Page -- Dedication Page -- Table of Contents -- Preface -- Acknowledgments -- Introduction -- 1. Brookline before Olmsted -- 2. Olmsted before Brookline -- 3. Henry Hobson Richardson -- 4. The Design Community -- 5. Charles Sprague Sargent -- 6. The Planning Context -- 7. The Institutional Context -- 8. The Neighborhood Context -- Conclusion: Landscape into Townscape -- Appendix A: Olmsted Design Projects in Brookline -- Appendix B: Architects and Landscape Architects in Brookline -- Appendix C: Statement as to Professional Methods and Charges, 1902 -- Appendix D: Collaborative Projects of H.H. Richardson and F.L. Olmsted Sr. -- Appendix E: Collaborative Commissions of the Olmsted Office in Brookline -- Appendix F: Brookline Projects of Shepley, Rutan & Coolidge -- Appendix G: Brookline Projects of Peabody & Stearns -- Appendix H: The Brookline Commissions of Andrews, Jaques & Rantoul -- Appendix I: Town Green and Green Hill Properties with Olmsted Connections -- Notes -- Index -- Back Cover.

This definitive, first full-scale biography of Olmsted--famed designer of New York's Central Park--reveals him also as a brilliant political and social reformer.

These papers document the personal and professional life of the foremost landscape architect in American history. Frederick Law Olmsted relocated from New York to the Boston area in the early 1880s. With the help of his stepson and partner, John Charles Olmsted, his professional office grew to become the first of its kind: a modern landscape architecture practice with park, subdivision, campus, residential, and other landscape design projects throughout the country. During the period covered in this volume, Olmsted and his partners, apprentices, and staff designed the exceptional park system of Boston and Brookline—including the Back Bay Fens, Franklin Park, and the Muddy River Improvement. Olmsted also designed parks for New York City, Rochester, Buffalo, and Detroit and created his most significant campus plans for Stanford University and the Lawrenceville School. The grounds of the U.S. Capitol were completed with the addition of the grand marble terraces that he designed as the transition to his surrounding landscape. Many of Olmsted’s most important private commissions belong to these years. He began his work at Biltmore, the vast estate of George Washington Vanderbilt, and designed Rough Point at Newport, Rhode Island, and several other estates for members of the Vanderbilt family. Olmsted wrote more frequently on the subject of landscape design during these years than in any comparable period. He would never provide a definitive treatise or textbook on landscape architecture, but the articles presented in this volume contain some of his most mature and powerful statements on the practice of landscape architecture.

The Olmsted Papers project is supported by the National Endowment for the Humanities, the National Historical Publications and Records Commission, the National Trust for the Humanities, the National Association for Olmsted Parks, as well as private foundations and individuals.