joined the family firm in 1897, and during his 50-year tenure worked on thousands of projects.į.L. was born on Staten Island and educated at Harvard University, where he graduated in 1894. National Park Service photograph.įrederick Law Olmsted Jr. John instituted modern office management techniques within the business while convincing municipal planners across the country that comprehensive park systems were indispensable components of 20 th century American cities. John Charles Olmsted graduated from Yale University’s Sheffield Scientific School and was active in the family’s firm from 1884 until his death in 1920. Olmsted National Historic Site photograph. His children and step-children became involved in the firm during the 1880s, with Olmsted eventually retiring in 1895 at age 73. and Calvert Vaux won the design contest for Central Park in 1865, Frederick was 43 years old. The couple later had three children of their own: Frederick Law Olmsted Jr., John Theodore and Marion.īy the time Frederick Olmsted Sr. In 1859, Frederick married his departed brother John’s widow, Mary Cleveland Perkins, and adopted her three children, John Charles, Owen, and Charlotte. While experimenting with various farming techniques on Staten Island, Olmsted developed an affinity for horticulture and landscape design. University of California Libraries collection Frederick Law Olmsted in 1850, approximately two years after moving to Staten Island. Fred’s mother died when he was only 4 years old, leaving his father to raise him and his brother, John Jr., alone.įred left at age 16 to attend Phillips Academy, and upon graduating moved to New York City where he found work as a merchant and journalist before purchasing land in Staten Island at age 26 to try his hand at farming. Olmsted Archives photograph.įrederick Law Olmsted was born in 1822 to Charlotte Law Olmsted and her husband John, a successful Connecticut merchant. In an era where comfort and wealth were enjoyed by a select few, parks supporters sought to provide natural and orderly public spaces to improve social order. Historian Jeanne Kolva describes Olmsted’s philosophy on public parks as a combination of artistic endeavor and social experimentation, intended to encourage commonality between the Gilded Age’s super rich and the majority of America’s working and middle classes. In addition to Central Park, Olmsted created the park systems of the cities of Boston and Buffalo. The Olmsted Firm designed the public park systems of Boston and Buffalo, among other cities of this era. Ellicotdale viewed from Ellicot Arch, Franklin Park, Boston. In this setting, Olmsted crafted flowing hills out of rocky outcrops, deposited tree lines and berms to hide nearby roads and buildings, and strategically placed babbling streams and groupings of boulders and shrubbery, all crafted to appear as if they had existed in tranquility for hundreds of years. preferred working in the Pastoral Style, as characterized by a meticulously planned and yet naturalistic built environment. North Jersey History & Genealogy Center collections (NJHGC).īest known for designing New York’s Central Park with partner Calvert Vaux in 1865, Frederick Law Olmsted Sr. General view of Central Park, Harper’s Weekly, August 27, 1864. The Garden State is home to nearly 40 parks designed by the Olmsted Firm, the first landscape architecture company in the United States.įounded by business partners Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux, the Olmsted Firm remained active from 1857 until the 1960s, with most of its New Jersey projects in the counties of Essex, Union, and Passaic and a few significant ones in Morris Township and Morristown. Moy, North Jersey History and Genealogy Center
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