CHAPTER X
JUNE 1894–NOVEMBER 1894

The documents in this chapter reveal Olmsted’s efforts to remain actively involved in the firm’s business even as he struggled to stay healthy and fight public critics of his work and profession. His letter to partners of June 1894, the Memoranda of June 10, 1894, and the letter to James Gall, Jr., reflect on the work done and yet to be completed at Biltmore, “the most critical” of the firm’s work “with reference to the future” of the profession of landscape architecture. Olmsted’s concerns for the Arboretum at Biltmore were heightened by an increasing awareness of his own mortality, as a sudden and severe illness in late June in Minneapolis left him bedridden for a week. By October, Olmsted was ready to take up the task of designing the arboretum, and his letter to George W. Vanderbilt shows his planning for that effort. Meanwhile, criticisms of the firm’s plans for the lower Charles River and for Jamaica Park, unauthorized changes in the design of Brooklyn’s Prospect Park, and a movement in New York to undermine Calvert Vaux’s authority as landscape architect to the park commission there left Olmsted disheartened and weary, and he shares his many anxieties in letters to Vaux, Charles F. Sprague, J. G. Jack, William A. Stiles, and Charles Eliot. His distress was so great that his letter to half-brother Albert Henry Olmsted cautions his nephew, Frederick E. Olmsted, against entering the profession of landscape architecture.

Even as these disappointments occurred, Olmsted remained engaged with his family and work. The letter to Rick of August 7 offers advice on making the most of his time in Colorado as part of the U.S. Coast and Geodetic Survey, taking the opportunity to think creatively about landscape design in the West, “the great puzzle of our profession for the future.” Olmsted’s letter to John [788]Charles Olmsted provides advice on what to study during his working vacation in England. Olmsted’s letter to Harold Brown expresses the importance of establishing unity between the layout of a house and its grounds, and his letter to John J. Glessner outlines the best treatment for his New Hampshire summer house. Regarding public parks, the letter to Edward Bolton shows Olmsted’s desire to secure scenic views from the drive at Brooklyn’s Ridgewood Park, while his letter to Louisville park commission president Thomas H. Sherley offers guidance for declining to accept donations of monuments that would undermine park scenery. Olmsted’s letter to Samuel Beiler makes important suggestions for the design of American University.