I
PICTORIAL ESSAY

The chief purpose of the following pictorial essay is to provide the reader with visual images of Central Park in its early years and thereby illuminate the documents and plans presented in the rest of the volume. All but three of the illustrations that are dated were made in 1863 or earlier. The exceptions are two bird’s-eye views of the park, dated 1864 and 1865, and one painting dated 1865. The few undated stereographs were probably taken in 1863 or before as well: the shape and color of their mounts and the names of their publishers—Barnum, Langenheim, and Stacy—indicate that they are from that period. Moreover, the stage of growth of the plantings in the undated stereographs is the same as that in other photographs (sometimes of the same scene) dated 1863 or earlier.

The latest photographs in this section therefore record the scenery of the park within two years of the time that Olmsted stopped acting as the full-time superintendent of construction and within a few weeks of the end of his official responsibility, with Vaux, for the landscape architecture of the park. The scenes these photographs depict can thus be presumed to reflect Olmsted’s design intent more truly than pictures taken after the Civil War, when he regained direction of the gardeners’ force for only a brief period. Only between September 1875 and December 1877 was he able to restore the pre-Civil War arrangement of supervising the gardeners, but even during that period he failed to gain approval for a special force of gardeners under his personal direction.

The first section of the essay, “A Variety of Views of the Park,” first presents bird’s-eye views that show the park in relation to the built-up city. Then follow renditions of the park by painters and illustrators. Finally, this section presents examples of architecture in the early park, both formal and rustic, and [372] examples of engineering with particular emphasis on the transverse roads. The second section, “The Photographic Record: A Tour of Central Park in the Early 1860s,” gives the reader a more comprehensive idea of the appearance of the park immediately following completion of construction and the first stage of planting. In addition to showing the openness of the Pond area and the panoramic views from Vista Rock, the photographs provide images of the separation of ways, the relation of the Mall to the Ramble, and the “picturesque” planting of the Lake and Ramble areas.

The principal sources for the photographs presented here are the series of stereographs by E. and H. T. Anthony entitled “A Visit to the ’Central Park’ in the Summer of 1863,” the set of photographs by Victor Prevost published in 1862 as Central Park in 1862, and the illustrations for the book by the photographer W. H. Guild and writer Fred. B. Perkins entitled The Central Park, published in early 1864. All views in these three sources were taken in 1863 or earlier.

The only person involved in the preparation of these three sets of photographic views with whom Olmsted is known to have had some connection was Frederic Beecher Perkins (1828–1899). Olmsted had known young Perkins in Hartford in the 1840s and had been engaged briefly to his sister Emily in 1851. Perkins later moved to New York City and was managing editor of Putnam’s Monthly Magazine at the time the firm of Dix, Edwards & Company purchased it. When Olmsted joined the firm as a partner in April 1855, he became the new managing editor. In the fall of 1855, Perkins assisted Olmsted in raising funds in New York City for the purchase of arms for free-state settlers in Kansas.

The only references to the preparation of the volume by Guild and Perkins appear in letters that Vaux wrote to Olmsted in California early in 1864. On January 30 he wrote:

Do you remember a Mr. Perkins, a literary & somewhat Bohemian Perkins. He was in to see me the other day having been engaged to write some description to accompany some illustrated book about the C. P. . . . He asked for particulars about the Design the Designers the Superintendent and the Commission & Comptroller &c. &c. I said that I would give him none unless he promised to show me his Mss. before allowing it to go to press, which he agreed to do, & I have seen nothing of him since.

Vaux’s information, then, cannot have influenced Guild’s choice of subjects, since his photographs were taken earlier in the season when the leaves [373] were still on the trees. Nonetheless, The Central Park contains some of the finest views of the park from that period. Combined with the work of Victor Prevost and the stereographic photographers of the time, it furnishes us with a remarkably full record of Central Park in the early 1860s.