An annotated listing of titles held at the Garden Library at Dumbarton Oaks, with an introduction discussing the evolution of American garden culture and landscape architecture in the course of the 19th century. Includes a chronological list of titles as well as an index and a good selection of bandw illustrations. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

George Perkins Marsh Prize, American Society for Environmental History VSNY Book Award, New York Metropolitan Chapter of the Victorian Society in America Hornblower Award for a First Book, New York Society Library James Broussard Best First Book Prize, Society for Historians of the Early American Republic With pigs roaming the streets and cows foraging in the Battery, antebellum Manhattan would have been unrecognizable to inhabitants of today’s sprawling metropolis. Fruits and vegetables came from small market gardens in the city, and manure piled high on streets and docks was gold to nearby farmers. But as Catherine McNeur reveals in this environmental history of Gotham, a battle to control the boundaries between city and country was already being waged, and the winners would take dramatic steps to outlaw New York’s wild side. “[A] fine book which make[s] a real contribution to urban biography.” —Joseph Rykwert, Times Literary Supplement “Tells an odd story in lively prose...The city McNeur depicts in Taming Manhattan is the pestiferous obverse of the belle epoque city of Henry James and Edith Wharton that sits comfortably in many imaginations...[Taming Manhattan] is a smart book that engages in the old fashioned business of trying to harvest lessons for the present from the past.” —Alexander Nazaryan, New York Times

A pictorial history of the development of New York City’s Central Park from conception to completion. Drawing on the unparalleled collection of original designs for Central Park in the New York City Municipal Archives, Cynthia S. Brenwall tells the story of the creation of New York’s great public park, from its conception to its completion. This treasure trove of material ranges from the original winning competition entry; to meticulously detailed maps; to plans and elevations of buildings, some built, some unbuilt; to elegant designs for all kinds of fixtures needed in a world of gaslight and horses; to intricate engineering drawings of infrastructure elements. Much of it has never been published before. A virtual time machine that takes the reader on a journey through the park as it was originally envisioned, The Central Park is both a magnificent art book and a message from the past about what brilliant urban planning can do for a great city.

The year 2008 marks the 150th anniversary of the design of Central Park, the first and arguably the most famous of America’s urban landscape parks. In October 1857 the new park’s board of commissioners announced a public design competition, and the following April the imaginative yet practicable "Greensward” plan submitted by Calvert Vaux and Frederick Law Olmsted was selected. This book tells the fascinating story of how an extraordinary work of public art emerged from the crucible of New York City politics. From William Cullen Bryant’s 1844 editorial calling for "a pleasure ground of shade and recreation” to the completion of construction in 1870, the history of Central Park is an urban epic--a tale not only of animosity, political intrigue, and desire but also of idealism, sacrifice, and genius.

Winner - 2023 John Brinkerhoff Jackson Book Prize, UVA Center for Cultural Landscapes With more than eight hundred sprawling green acres in the middle of one of the world’s densest cities, Central Park is an urban masterpiece. Designed in the middle of the nineteenth century by the landscape architects Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux, it is a model for city parks worldwide. But before it became Central Park, the land was the site of farms, businesses, churches, wars, and burial grounds—and home to many different kinds of New Yorkers. This book is the authoritative account of the place that would become Central Park. From the first Dutch family to settle on the land through the political crusade to create America’s first major urban park, Sara Cedar Miller chronicles two and a half centuries of history. She tells the stories of Indigenous hunters, enslaved people and enslavers, American patriots and British loyalists, the Black landowners of Seneca Village, Irish pig farmers, tavern owners, Catholic sisters, Jewish protesters, and more. Miller unveils a British fortification and camp during the Revolutionary War, a suburban retreat from the yellow fever epidemics at the turn of the nineteenth century, and the properties that a group of free Black Americans used to secure their right to vote. Tales of political chicanery, real estate speculation, cons, and scams stand alongside democratic idealism, the striving of immigrants, and powerfully human lives. Before Central Park shows how much of the history of early America is still etched upon the landscapes of Central Park today.