A clearing in the distance : Frederick Law Olmsted and America in the 19th century

In a brilliant collaboration between writer and subject, the bestselling author of Home and City Life illuminates Frederick Law Olmsted's role as a major cultural figure and a man at the epicenter of nineteenth-century American history. We know Olmsted through the physical legacy of his stunning landscapes -- among them, New York's Central Park, California's Stanford University campus, Boston's Back Bay Fens, Illinois's Riverside community, Asheville's Biltmore Estate, and Louisville's park system. He was a landscape architect before that profession was founded, designed the first large suburban community in the United States, foresaw the need for national parks, and devised one of the country's first regional plans. Olmsted's contemporaries knew a man of even more extraordinarily diverse talents. Born in 1822, he traveled to China on a merchant ship at the age of twenty-one. He cofounded The Nation magazine and was an early voice against slavery. He wrote books about the South and about his exploration of the Texas frontier. He managed California's largest gold mine and, during the Civil War, served as general secretary to the United States Sanitary Commission, the precursor of the Red Cross. Olmsted was both ruthlessly pragmatic and a visionary. To create Central Park, he managed thousands of employees who moved millions of cubic yards of stone and earth and planted over 300,000 trees and shrubs. In laying it out, "we determined to think of no results to be realized in less than forty years," he told his son, Rick. "I have all my life been considering distant effects and always sacrificing immediate success and applause to that of the future." To this day, Olmsted's ideas about people, nature, and society are expressed across the nation -- above all, in his parks, so essential to the civilized life of our cities. Rybczynski's passion for his subject and his understanding of Olmsted's immense complexity and accomplishments make this book a triumphant work. In A Clearing in the Distance, the story of a great nineteenth-century American becomes an intellectual adventure. Chronicles The Life And Career Of Landscape Architect Frederick Law Olmsted, And The Effect His Ideas Had On American Culture. Schemes. Tough As Nails -- Frederick Goes To School -- Hartford -- I Have No Objection -- New York -- A Year Before The Mast -- Friends -- Farming -- More Farming -- A Walking Tour In The Old Country -- Jostling And Being Jostled. Mr. Downing's Magazine -- Olmstead Falls I Love And Finishes His Book -- Charley Brace Intervenes -- Yeoman -- A Traveling Companion -- The Texas Settlers -- Yeoman Makes A Decision -- Much The Best Mag. In The World -- Abroad -- Hitting Heads. A Change In Fortune -- The Colonel Meets His Match -- Mr. Vaux -- A Brilliant Solution -- A Promotion -- Frederick And Mary -- Comptroller Green -- King Cotton -- A Good Big Work -- Yeoman's War -- Six Months More Pretty Certainly -- A Letter From Dana -- Never Happier -- Olmstead Shortens Sail -- A Heavy Sort Of Book -- Calvert Vaux Doesn't Take No For An Answer -- Loose Ends A Magnificent Opening. Olmsted And Vaux Plan A Perfect Park -- Metropolitan -- A Stopover In Buffalo -- Thirty-nine Thousand Trees -- Best-laid Plans -- Henry Hobson Richardson -- Olmsted's Dilemma -- Alone -- More Interesting Than Nature -- Olmsted In Demand -- I Shall Be Free From It On The 1st Of January -- Standing First. An Arduous Convalescence -- Fairstead -- The Character Of His Business -- The Sixth Park -- Olmsted Meets The Governor -- Olmsted And Vaux, Together Again -- Make A Small Pleasure Ground And Gardens -- Olmsted Drives Hard -- The Fourth Muse -- Dear Rick -- Sunset -- Olmsted's Distant Effects. Distant Effects -- A Selectged List Of Olmsted Projects. Witold Rybczynski. Reprint. Originally Published: C1999. Includes Bibliographical References (p. 429-460) And Index.

In a brilliant collaboration between writer and subject, Witold Rybczynski, the bestselling author of Home and City Life, illuminates Frederick Law Olmsted's role as a major cultural figure at the epicenter of nineteenth-century American history.

We know Olmsted through the physical legacy of his stunning landscapes -- among them, New York's Central Park, California's Stanford University campus, and Boston's Back Bay Fens. But Olmsted's contemporaries knew a man of even more extraordinarily diverse talents. Born in 1822, he traveled to China on a merchant ship at the age of twenty-one. He cofounded The Nation magazine and was an early voice against slavery. He managed California's largest gold mine and, during the Civil War, served as the executive secretary to the United States Sanitary Commission, the precursor of the Red Cross.

Rybczynski's passion for his subject and his understanding of Olmsted's immense complexity and accomplishments make his book a triumphant work. In A Clearing in the Distance, the story of a great nineteenth-century American becomes an intellectual adventure.

Andrew Ferguson

[Landscaping] really was an art form onceand the life of the man who made it so deserves to be remembered....A Clearing in the Distance is...humanelivelylearned but not pedanticbrief but comprehensive....What better time to rediscover Olmstead and reclaim the patrimony he hoped to leave us? —Fortune

In a brilliant collaboration between writer and subject, Witold Rybczynski, the bestselling author of Now I Sit Me Down , illuminates Frederick Law Olmsted's role as a major cultural figure at the epicenter of nineteenth-century American history. We know Olmsted through the physical legacy of his stunning landscapesamong them, New York's Central Park, California's Stanford University campus, and Boston's Back Bay Fens. But Olmsted's contemporaries knew a man of even more extraordinarily diverse talents. Born in 1822, he traveled to China on a merchant ship at the age of twenty-one. He cofounded The Nation magazine and was an early voice against slavery. He managed California's largest gold mine and, during the Civil War, served as the executive secretary to the United States Sanitary Commission, the precursor of the Red Cross. Rybczynski's passion for his subject and his understanding of Olmsted's immense complexity and accomplishments make his book a triumphant work. In A Clearing in the Distance, the story of a great nineteenth-century American becomes an intellectual adventure. OLMSTED WAS AN ORGANIZER when organization was considered a symptom of monomania," and a long-range planner in a period that thought of planning as "mysterious."