Talk:Frederick Law Olmsted

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Peer review Frederick Law Olmsted has had a peer review by Wikipedia editors which is now archived. It may contain ideas you can use to improve this article.
To-do list for Frederick Law Olmsted: edit · history · watch · refresh
  • Expand Other commissions of Olmsted to include as many of Olmsted's works as is reasonable.

I understand that one of Olmsted's projects was the landscape design for the Haviland estate outside of Limoges, France. The Haviland family owned the Haviland china factory in Limoges.
Priority 3  

Contents

[edit] Highlighting of one city's works by Olmsted

I guess I'm at a loss here. Why are Buffalo's parks really any more special than Olmsted's other great works? He completed a major parks/parkway system in Louisville, so why can't that also be promoted? And that's my point-- that Buffalo is getting unfair promotion here at the expense of others. — Stevie is the man! Talk | Contrib 15:04, 15 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Being an on-again-off-again contributer to this article I tend to agree with you, Stevie My Man. Perhaps much of this Buffalo stuff could be moved to an article on the Buffalo Park its self. There is no reason why the Buffalo Park System can't be its own article and include all this information. But it [opinion] does make the Olmstead piece a bit lopsided. Carptrash 17:45, 15 Feb 2005 (UTC)
How about this content be moved to Buffalo, New York or we create a new article List of Frederick Law Olmsted's works (or something similar)? — Stevie is the man! Talk | Contrib 02:59, 16 Feb 2005 (UTC)
I think I like Commissions of Frederick Law Olmsted instead. Sound good? I think I may create a stub article for this soon. — Stevie is the man! Talk | Contrib 17:56, 16 Feb 2005 (UTC)
I did not intend to unfairly promote any area over any other. I simply thought that an example of a park system created by FLO would be appropriate, and why not use the largest intact system as that example? Currently all of the parks and parkways listed from Buffalo have no pages of their own, but it is my (longterm) plan to complete pages for these as well. IMHO, it seems to deepen the understanding of how much work he put into these types of systems. For someone who had never seen a city wide system of this magnitude, they may read "system of parks and parkways" and have no idea of what that really means. I edited the artical to downplay Buffalo a bit and make it more odvious that Buffalo is only an example of his work. Let me know what you think... --T.C. 03:12, 16 Feb 2005 (UTC)
How about (again) we place this info and info about all of Olmsted's parks into a new article? Then we can point to that article from this one. How about it? — Stevie is the man! Talk | Contrib 03:21, 16 Feb 2005 (UTC)
I'm sorry, but I simply do not agree with making a separate page for the commissions of FLO. In doing so you would have to remove most of this article as it would become redundant (which I believe was your original complaint with my addition). If you look at other pages of simular people you will not see such separate pages, and the majority of their articles speak to their works. In fact, if you look at the page for Daniel Burnham, you will see that most of the page focuses on Chicago, and if you look at the page for Calvert Vaux, who was partners with FLO, you will see many of the same Buffalo works shown there. I still think that it makes sense to use an example of the scope of the work that FLO did and Buffalo is a perfect example. If somehow you still find it unacceptable, possibly moving the list of Buffalo works into the 'Selected Commissions' section would be viewed as less promotional. --T.C. 02:16, 17 Feb 2005 (UTC)
TC: You had me going until you brought in Daniel Burnham. Most of his article is about Chicago because he was from Chicago, his office was there and the majority of his commissions were there. The same can not be claimed [well, maybe it can be claimed, but . . . . . . . ....] about FLO and Buffalo. It's not so much that all this should go in an article about "FLO in Buffalo" as it should just be included, be just a section, of the greater Buffalo article. Carptrash 03:27, 17 Feb 2005 (UTC)
I've been a contributor to Wikipedia for about a year, and there are many many examples of articles that list things as a breakapart from a main article. However, in this case, you might be right that we could include the entire list of commissions within this article, for now. I don't see a good enough reason to highlight the Buffalo commissions at the expense of others... just because they're the "largest intact". There are many ways to differentiate these works that one could elevate other FLO works above the ones in Buffalo. — Stevie is the man! Talk | Contrib 17:14, 17 Feb 2005 (UTC)


I agree with you that there are many ways to break things down that could make any widget or in this case place appear to stand out from the widgets. It was not my intent to make Buffalo somehow stand out above the other works of FLW, however I though that it seemed necessary to include an example of FLO's work. To me without it, it sort of seems like big deal so this was some guy who made a few parks around the country...so what? I guess that the difference between my POV and your POV is that you see this as some type of Buffalo promotion, while I just see it as a way to highlight the scale on which FLO worked. It was a huge undertaking and Olmsted even lived in Buffalo for years while he worked on it. I'll remove the 'largest intact' part of the passage in an effort to try to be less promotional. --T.C. 04:08, 18 Feb 2005 (UTC)
I still think we should add all his commissions. Why not? It's informative. — Stevie is the man! Talk | Contrib 04:15, 18 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Well there is a pretty good list [I did a lot of it myself] of his other commissions, but feel free to add to it. However, if we are going to accept this Buffalo thing [could this be where the word "buffaloed" comes from?] Let's do it right [write?]. Using the word "create' three times won't do, and having 'entire' twice is not much better. So i changed those. And TC, why don't you register with wikipedia so that you are . . .. more of a somebody, rather than a disenbodied point of view? It is interesting to note that while Olmstead's Buffalo commission takes up perhaps 20% of the vertical size of the article, it rates less than one page out of about 200 in Hall's book. Carptrash 08:12, 18 Feb 2005 (UTC)

[edit] References

I think/feel [think/feel, think/feel, think/feel] that arranging the reference chronologically is not a good idea. Bibliographies, and this is really what this list is, are ALWAYS arranged alphabetically by the authors’ last names. Which is what I'm about to do here unless someone arrives with a good counter point real soon . Carptrash 19:18, 17 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Go for it. — Stevie is the man! Talk | Contrib 21:41, 17 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Olmsted wrote quite a few books.[1] of which only one is cited while others are alluded to. A bibliographic section is needed. --Larry Koenigsberg (talk) 16:32, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Yosemite Board of Commissioners

Alluded to and external-linked in the article, Olmsted was a member of a Board of Commissioners "appointed to manage the grant of the Yosemite Valley and the Mariposa Big Tree Grove from Congress to the State of California as a park." My brief Web search has not substantiated Olmsted's relationship with John Muir. My understanding is that Olmsted as a member of the Commission suggested to Muir that he get himself to Yosemite, thus initiating Muir's lifelong relationship with that locale. --Larry Koenigsberg (talk) 16:32, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Date of birth

I've checked a few sources online. I tried to eliminate the ones that are clearly or probably relying on our article in either of its versions (the birthdate given in our article was recently changed). I'm still left confused. More sources seem to give the date as April 26, including About.com, a University of Texas site, and the Writer's Almanac. In the April 27 camp, however, we find the 1911 Britannica. It would be nice if someone could resolve this. JamesMLane 06:13, 7 May 2005 (UTC)

NNDB, which doesn't seem to be based on Wikipedia, gives April 27. [1] Two .gov sites ([2] and [3]) show April 26. A biography on Amazon.com shows April 26. [4]
My Google search terms were /"Frederick Law Olmsted" birthdate -wikipedia -encyclopedia -Jr./

[edit] Audubon Park

You have listed Audubon Park in New Orleans as a Fred Olmsted commission, but actually Audubon Park was design by Frederick Olmsted's nephew, John Olmsted.

Removed. Be bold! MarkinBoston 18:51, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Please see Frederick Law Olmsted, Jr. article

I just stubbed the Frederick Law Olmsted, Jr. and I must admit landscape architecture is a bit outside of my field, so if anyone would be so kind as to add some information to it, that'd be very helpful. Thanks. --Cyde Weys [u] [t] [c] 07:13, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Downing's Death

Olmstead is my great X4 uncle. I looked into the Downing page, after I read that he died "a hero's death" on this page. Yet, in the Downing page it says "In a rare moment of cowardice" he died after jumping ship! Can you explain this dramatic contradiction?

[edit] Riverside Illinois

The article, I think, needs to be expanded with some more on Riverside Illinois, planned by Olmstead and Calvert Vaux. Riverside is one of the first planned communities and as important as the Neighborhood Unit, the Radburn Idea and the Garden City for Urban Planning. VRS 07:48, 28 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Downing and his Death

Downing actually died while saving his mother-in-law in the Hudson River, so I would say that it's more of a "hero's death." Also, William Cullen Bryant was the first person to come up with the idea for a central public park. He was then joined by Downing and together, they planned Central Park.

[edit] Academic peer-reviewed criticism of this article

From Rosenzweig's article reports a minor error: "Frederick Law Olmsted is said to have managed the Mariposa mining estate after the Civil War, rather than in 1863.[...] The Olmsted entry has him (correctly) forming Olmsted, Vaux and Company in 1865 at the same time that he is (incorrectly) in California running Mariposa. ".--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 18:19, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] China? The Nation?

Can someone show me the source of any information about Olmsted's tour of China and his involvement with The Nation? I'm just not seeing anything about a lot of this, which makes me wonder about most of the non-career early biographical material here. I'm willing to accept that I'm probably mistaken here, but can we please cite?

[edit] Emerald Necklace

I'm going to recommend listing Boston's parks under a single heading:

Emerald Necklace parks and parkways

  • Back Bay Fens
  • Riverway
  • Jamaicaway
  • Olmsted Park
  • etc.

The E.N. and each park and parkway have their own Wiki pages, and they are historically united. It will put all the Boston parks in one place. MarkinBoston 18:37, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] While I'm at it

Do the works of the sons belong in a list for the father? The sons' business has its own page. The man died in 1903, and campuses built in 1925 are on the list. Makes no sense to me. MarkinBoston 18:48, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Problem needs fixing

The top of the page seems to have some broken code. Can someone that knows how fix it? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Cubeofmoon (talk • contribs) 03:24, 25 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] References

  1. ^ http://www.worldcat.org/search?q=au%3Afrederick+law+olmsted&qt=advanced