ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

We note with deep regret the death of Lyman H. Butterfield, editor in chief emeritus of the Adams Papers. Involved with the Olmsted Papers project from the very beginning, he introduced Charles McLaughlin, then a graduate student, to the craft of editing. As a member of the Advisory Board, he gave us much-needed advice and assistance as we formulated our editorial policies and began publication. We shall miss him and do our best to carry on our work in the great tradition he so well represented.

This volume also owes much to the constant support provided the Olmsted Papers project in past years by the late Eleanor Murdock. Her assistance, often given when the funding and future of the project were uncertain, has been an important source of encouragement for the editors.

Work on this volume was begun under a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities, with substantial matching grants coming from the Continental Trust Company of Illinois, the Gaylord Donnelley Foundation, the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, The Rockefeller Foundation, and the U. S. Capitol Historical Society. Numerous individuals also contributed matching funds, most notably Mrs. Thomas R. Coyne and Clarence E. Heller. The volume was completed under a grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.

The editors of this volume are particularly indebted to Herbert Mitchell for making available to them his collection of stereoscopic views of Central Park. The large number of views in the collection taken in 1863 or earlier, and the high proportion of views emphasizing landscape features rather than architectural [xxvi] objects, has made it particularly valuable for the purposes of this volume. Without Mr. Mitchell’s generosity and astute collector’s eye we would not have been able to provide nearly as comprehensive a presentation of the scenery of the early park. We are also indebted to William and Judith Hernstadt, who most generously permitted us to publish two of the scenes from their painting Views of Central Park, by T. Addison Richards, and to Charles J. Reeder for permission to publish views taken from his copy of The Central Park, by W. H. Guild and Fred. B. Perkins.

The editors wish to thank Gordon Davis, commissioner of the Department of Parks and Recreation of New York City, for permission to examine the original Greensward plan in his offices, and Henry Hope Reed, former curator of Central Park, for showing us materials from his collection of park reports and views. We also appreciate the assistance given us by William Alex, president of the Frederick Law Olmsted Association, in gathering visual materials. We wish to thank Susan Dooha for guiding us through the Central Park Drawings Collection at the Avery Architectural and Fine Arts Library of Columbia University. We also appreciate the assistance given us by Janet Parks, curator of that collection, in viewing plans and obtaining copies of them. We owe a continuing debt to Shary Page Berg, park manager of the Olmsted National Historic Site in Brookline, Massachusetts, for granting us access to the plans and photographs at the site, and to curator Mary Tynan for her usual invaluable help in using the collections there at “Fairsted.”

The editors were fortunate to be able to avail themselves of the knowledge of horticulture of Herbert Orange, who identified the current Latin and common names of plants mentioned in this volume. Once again we benefited from the cartographic skills of Stephen Kraft, who prepared the volume’s maps and plans. Melanie Simo drew from her knowledge of landscape design in nineteenth-century England in commenting on related annotation, and Marilyn Tuchow provided valuable criticism of the introduction.

The following institutions kindly permitted us to publish documents by Olmsted that are currently in their possession: The Adams Papers at the Massachusetts Historical Society; the Gray Herbarium of Harvard University; the Library of Congress; the New-York Historical Society; and The New York Public Library, Astor, Lenox and Tilden Foundations. Stephen Miller of the Museum of the City of New York assisted the editors in securing prints of the eleven Greensward presentation studies and other materials in the museum’s collections. Wendy Shadwell helped us secure a number of stereographic views from the collections of the New-York Historical Society. We wish to thank the staffs of the Rare Book and Prints Divisions of the New York Public Library, the Frances Loeb Library of the Graduate School of Design at Harvard University, the Avery Library of Columbia University, the Society for the Preservation of New England Antiquities, the Library of Congress, and the Queens Borough Library in New York City for assistance in finding visual materials and for permission to [xxvii] publish them. As always, we are especially indebted to the staff of the Manuscripts Division of the Library of Congress, which has cheerfully assisted us so frequently and for so long.

Jane Turner Censer, associate editor of the Olmsted Papers, provided valuable comment and editorial assistance at all stages of the preparation of this volume. Kenneth T. Stringer, Jr., research associate of the Papers, provided the editors with skillful assistance in preparation of the annotation of the documents. Assistant editor Sharon Lew and archivist Duncan McCollum helped to organize the documents of the period and to check galley and page proofs. Maureen Miller and Barbara Lautman typed the texts and editorial matter. Tina Raheem, Sandra Scholar, and Philip Menzies helped to index the volume. Pamela Hoes Cohen provided timely assistance in research and the copying of materials in New York City.

David Schuyler assumed primary responsibility for annotation of the documents, while Charles Beveridge wrote the introduction and took primary responsibility for selecting and organizing the illustrations. Like Central Park itself, this volume is the work of many hands. And, like the park, its two principal designers share equal and indivisible responsibility for the whole. The information and interpretations presented here are the result of the merging of research, thinking, and writing done by both editors over many years, and of a constant and fruitful exchange of ideas during the period of preparation of the volume.