CHAPTER V
NOVEMBER 1891–APRIL 1892

The letters in this chapter document a flurry of activity from Olmsted before traveling to Europe in early April. Olmsted’s two letters to Francis Newlands of mid-November 1891 on the planning of streets in the Chevy Chase residential subdivision show his prescience regarding the growing importance of suburban communities and the need to plan carefully the outward extension of urban areas. Moreover, Olmsted’s consultation with Newlands led to another important commission—with the federal government for the planning of the extension of the District of Columbia streets—which he describes in his “D.C. Streets Memorandum” of December 30, 1891.

Several letters in this chapter address work at the World’s Columbian Exposition. The boating arrangements for the Fair, with its Lagoon district and numerous waterways, proved especially interesting to Olmsted. In letters to Daniel H. Burnham, Henry Sargent Codman, and Miles G. Nixon, Olmsted outlines the types of launches he wanted and their importance to the overall scenic composition of the Lagoon. Olmsted’s insistence on lean, quiet, and elegant launches—and his desire for exotic boats with similar qualities—indicates the centrality of boats to the fair’s design. Even as Olmsted made his case for these boating arrangements, he anxiously entreated the firm’s primary representative at the site—Rudolph Ulrich—in March 1891 to better delegate his responsibilities so that an injury or illness to him would not cripple the firm’s capacity to realize its designs.

In addition to his work on the exposition and in Washington, D.C., Olmsted consulted on a number of other projects. His November 10 letter to Peter White calls for the preservation of Presque Isle in Marquette, Michigan, as a rural retreat for town residents. His November 27 letter to George W. [411]Vanderbilt recommends the hiring of Gifford Pinchot to direct Biltmore’s forestry operations, and his December article, “George W. Vanderbilt’s Nursery,” makes the case for the scientific significance of the horticultural operations on the estate. A December 30, 1891, letter to Henry Sargent Codman shows the challenges of working with wealthy client Hamilton Twombly, and also Olmsted’s clever adjustments of the design of the mansion’s terraces to meet Twombly’s demands. A lengthy letter to Boston parks commission president Thomas Livermore, written in 1891 after several groups protested the ban of public rallies in Franklin Park, expresses the belief that large rural parks, free from noise, clamor, and vigorous activities, held special value in urban areas, especially as metropolitan growth more and more cut off access to the countryside. On a similar topic, two February 1892 letters to Livermore and fellow commissioner Francis A. Walker express the urgent need for the park commission to purchase additional land expressly meant for active sports and public rallies—the land that would become Franklin Field. Three letters of late January and early February show Olmsted’s desire to help a new protégé, William Platt, as he embarked on a European trip with his brother. And, just prior to Olmsted’s own European departure, he wrote two letters related to his work in New York: the March 30, 1892, letter to John Jay Chapman calls on New Yorkers to protest the intended construction of a speedway in Central Park; the April 1, 1892, letter to Ridgeway Tiers describes the difficulty and frequent failures of urban streetside tree planting.