Frederick Law Olmsted, Jr. (July 24, 1870 – December 25, 1957) was an
American landscape architect best known for his
wildlife conservation efforts. He had a lifetime commitment to national parks, and worked on projects in
Acadia, the
Everglades and
Yosemite National Park.
Olmsted Point in
Yosemite and
Olmsted Island at
Great Falls of the
Potomac River in
Maryland are named after him. He and his brother
John C. Olmsted created
Olmsted Brothers as a successor firm to their father's.
Career
Olmsted was born on
Staten Island,
New York, the son of
Frederick Law Olmsted and Mary Cleveland Perkins, and half brother of
John Charles Olmsted.
After graduating from the
Roxbury Latin School in 1890,F. Washington Jarvis,
Schola Illustris: The Roxbury Latin School, 1645-1995, p. 344. Boston: David R. Godine, 1995. ISBN 1567920667. he began his career as his famous father's apprentice. He worked early on two significant projects: the 1893
World's Columbian Exposition in
Chicago, and the largest privately owned home in the United States—the
George Vanderbilt estate in
North Carolina, famously called the
Biltmore Estate.
In 1894 he earned his bachelor's degree at
Harvard University and became a partner in his father's
Brookline, Massachusetts landscape architecture firm in 1895. Shortly thereafter, his father retired. Olmsted and his half brother quickly took over leadership of the firm. For the next half-century, the Olmsted brothers' firm completed thousands...
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