CHAPTER I
VOYAGE TO SAN FRANCISCO

This chapter, consisting of a travel journal and three letters written while Olmsted was on his way from New York to San Francisco, introduces several of Olmsted’s main concerns during his years in California. He continues his observations, begun during his journeys through the South and Midwest, of Americans in frontier conditions. As he observes his fellow passengers on Cornelius Vanderbilt’s steamer Champion, he ponders the behavior of Americans released from the social restraints of settled communities in the East and Europe. He compares the informal, unrestricted behavior of the American travelers to the more formal and class-conscious behavior of passengers on British steamers.

Olmsted’s fascination with the emotional effects produced by landscape, and his interest in applying them to park design, become evident on his trip across the Isthmus of Panama. In letters to his wife and Ignaz Pilat, the chief gardener supervising the planting of Central Park, he expresses his delight with the tropical scenery of Panama and the Mexican coast. He carefully analyzes his response and examines the distinct features that produced his impressions. He suggests to Pilat which temperate-zone trees, bushes, and vines can produce the same effects on the shores of the lake in Central Park.

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The Steamship Champion