The last great projects, 1890-1895
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Bibliographic Information
The last great projects, 1890-1895
（The Papers of Frederick Law Olmsted, v. 9）
Johns Hopkins University Press, 2015
Available at 1 libraries
Note
Includes bibliograhpical references and indexes
Description and Table of Contents
Description
In 1890, Frederick Law Olmsted, then nearly sixty-eight years old, had risen to the pinnacle of his career. Together with his partners, stepson John Charles Olmsted and protege Henry Sargent Codman, he was involved in a number of major ongoing projects, including the Boston, Buffalo, and Rochester park systems, the campus plan for Stanford University, and numerous private estates. In July, he reported that the firm had "twenty works of considerable importance" underway, including nine large parks and six estates that he believed were "matters of public interest." Before the summer ended, the firm's commitments would expand dramatically as Olmsted and his partners were appointed landscape architects for the World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago. As commissions for new park systems, residential communities, grounds for educational institutions, and private homes increased, Olmsted feared that their commitments would exceed the partners' ability to do their best work. Despite these fears, Olmsted's work in the final six years of his professional career would only enhance his considerable reputation, as the ninth and final volume of The Papers of Frederick Law Olmsted reveals.
With its impressive waterways, monumental buildings, and verdant islands and shores, the Chicago fair proved to be one of the firm's crowning achievements. The early 1890s also saw the culmination of Olmsted's wide-ranging work on one of his other great projects: the design of the grounds of George W. Vanderbilt's massive estate, Biltmore, near Asheville, North Carolina. In planning the estate's thousands of acres, Olmsted outlined new approaches to landscape design, promoted the creation of the first scientific forestry operation in the United States, designed a model residential subdivision, and proposed an arboretum that would have been the most ambitious in the nation. The Last Great Projects, 1890-1895, chronicles the history of one of the world's greatest landscape design firms while offering a fascinating retrospective on Frederick Law Olmsted's productive final years. The volume also gathers together the important documents of this last triumphant era. As Olmsted neared the end of his career, he wrote some of his most reflective letters and reports, summarizing the legacy of his involvement with the U.S.
Sanitary Commission, the quality of landscape design in England and France, the biographical circumstances that proved most important to his development as an artist, and his hopes and fears for the future of his profession.
Table of Contents
Illustrations
Acknowledgments
Introduction
Editorial Policy
Short Titles Used in Citations
Biographical Directory
Chapter 1. April 1890-August 1890
Chapter 2. August 1890-December 1890
Chapter 3. December 1890-March 1891
Chapter 4. April 1891-October 1891
Chapter 5. November 1891-April 1892
Chapter 6. April 1892-August 1892
Chapter 7. September 1892-May 1983
Chapter 8. May 1983-November 1893
Chapter 9. December 1893-May 1894
Chapter 10. June 1894-November 1894
Chapter 11. December 1894-May 1895
Chapter 12. May 1985-December 1985
Appendix 1. Selected Undated Writings
Appendix 2. Chronology of Frederick Law Olmsted, 1890-1895
Appendix 3. List of Textual Alterations
Index of Plant Materials
General Index
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