Program Calendar

Join us to experience an illustrated presentation on The Olmsted Legacy by writer, public historian and filmmaker Laurence Cotton. Mr. Cotton. Self-taught Renaissance man Frederick Law Olmsted, his two sons and the Olmsted Brothers landscape architecture firm, left a huge imprint upon the landscapes of North America. Not only did Olmsted and his progeny found the field of landscape architecture, they also were early proponents of urban planning. Frederick Law Olmsted Senior was influenced by English garden design, the Arts and Crafts movement, the City Beautiful Movement, the Hudson River School, the Transcendentalists, and the American Literary Renaissance of the mid to late 19th Century. Arguably, in his unique fashion, he was equally a contributor to all those movements. In addition to their famous urban parks and park systems, the Olmsteds played key roles in the creation and design of national, state and county parks across the nation. The Olmsted design philosophy addressed public health, mental health, and issues of equity and access that are even more relevant to contemporary park managers and users. Frederick Law Olmsted foresaw the crucial role of nature in the urban setting and the part that parks can play in the enactment of democracy in a diverse society. In his fast paced PowerPoint presentation, Mr. Cotton will touch on all of these topics, while also offering something of a travelogue of Olmsted-designed master landscapes across North America.

Moderator: Laurence Cotton, writer, public historian, and documentary film producer

Image: Cascades in Forest Park, Springfield, Mass. Postcard, Springfield College Archives and Special Collections, Cliff Smith YMCA Postcard Collection

Free admission to the Museums a la Carte lectures for all museum members made possible by the National Endowment for the Humanities through the #SHARP program.