Elegance and grass roots: The neglected philosophy of Frederick law Olmsted

Frederick Law Olmsted is best known for his work in landscape architecture, pardcularly his creadon of New York's Central Park. It is not so well known that his park designs were inspired by an ambidous and systemadc philosophy. This essay will trace the development of Olmsted's thought from his early Jeffersonian pastoralism to a new vision of the important role of city parks in a democracy. My aims are to show that: 1) Olmsted was influenced by Udlitarianism and Transcendentalism, but he went beyond them and made an original contribudon to the thought of his dme that in some respects andcipated American Pragmadsm; 2) Olmsted's philosophy of park design and his social philosophy are complementary and inseparable, forming an elegant system in which a few simple aesthedc principles entail profound and wide-ranging effects that he thought would civilize and democradze American society; and 3) an understanding of Olmsted's visionary philosophy cannot only enhance our appreciadon of his landscape architecture but also better enable us to grasp the contemporary relevance of his work. When Olmsted was born in Hartford, Connecdcut in 1822, America was a rural society in which 9 out of 10 million people lived on farms or in small villages. He never graduated fi-om a school or college, and it was only by a series of fortunate accidents that he was able to acquire the knowledge and skills needed to succeed in his career in landscape architecture. Damage to his eyes fi-om sumac poisoning prevented him fi-om attending Yale, so he served as apprendce to a civil engineer and learned surveying. His next job was bookkeeping for a dry goods company in New York, which he found so boring that he took the opportunity to escape by sailing on a merchant ship to China. At the age of twenty-two Olmsted decided to become a gendeman farmer with land purchased by his father, and he studied hordculture and botany, attended lecttares at Yale on geology and sciendfic agriculture, and read widely on nature, landscaping, and aesthedcs. He published his first book. Walks and Talks of an American Farmer in England, and edited Putnam's Monthly undl it went bankrupt. During this early period, Olmsted adopted the Jeffersonian view that the small independent farmer is the nucleus of democracy, but his views changed