the magazine we want belly up, olmstead lost his job. olmstead was short on coal. he owed money to everybody he knew. he had a hole in his shoe. he didn't have a proper hat. he decided to take a job that was an up credible come down for someone who was traveling in such lofty circles rubbing shoulder with the licks of emerson. he took a job in which he cleared an unattractive piece of land, knocked down shanties, and cleared swamps in an ugly piece of land that was named for its position in the middle of new york city. it's called central park. he was clearing the piece of land for someone else's design. enter vox. he's an english trained architect, took a look at the plans, and he was disgusted and couldn't believe the design. what's more, vox had friends. in high places. he had recently designed a 5th avenue mansion of the board member of the future central park. he approached the board and said, first of all, 24 is a terrible -- this is a teacial design, get -- terrible design. in england, where i'm from, if you want the best design, hold a public competition. t

olmstead continued solo and did a lot of designs. the reason why people respond to them like they do today, why they are so set apart today, is very much because of how he drew on all the various dead ends he traveled down and career eddies he traveled over before finding landscape architecture. he brought those varied experiences into play. what i'm going to do now is describe just three of his greatest works in the context of his earlier experiences coming into play. the first of the designs is up that way, the ground of the u.s. capitol. he was called upon to design the capitol ground in 1874, and the very first thing he did was he became extremely fix sated on finding a circulation system, a logical way for people to travel over the capitol grounds. in this era, there were 41 points where the person could enter the capitol grounds, and people were in the habit of entering the ground at any one of the 41 points and making a b-line for the strains of the capitol producing grid work with people just walking in straight lines criss c

[applause] [inaudible conversations] >> peaceful abolition of slavery affecting frederick olmstead in his persuasion of england of joining the south in the civil war? >> let's see, the basis of abolitionism is greasing. he was a gradualist, another qualification of getting the times job. they wanted someone objective or sort of objective to go there, and gradualists believed slavery was wrong, but thought you couldn't impose -- one region o couldn't impose one and that also this was a complicated institution that needed time to be unwound. and so for that reason they thought because he wasn't a rabid abolition they thought a good person to go to the south and as you read his 48 dispatches, you see olmstead make an amazing transformation from being a gradualist to being someone who really becomes an abolitionist precisely because of what he witnessed and one of the most amazing thing he witnessed he saw a slave -- one thing when he was traveling one person jealously guarded with him was the actual punishment for the slaves. he travels around the south and no one punishes a slave and on

like he was the architect, which was olmstead's greatest achievement. with that, i say, please welcome justin martin to the stage. he will be signing books from 4-5 p.m. as well. [applause] >> thank you for the nice introduction. it is nice to here at the national book festival. i'm here as well as being an author, but here as a fan. i had a really great day seeing different speeches. it's been really fun. my book is called "genius of place: the life of frederick law olmsted." first, i'll describe the path he took in becoming a landscape architect, and then i'll describe his greatest designs in the context of how all the various aide dis he traveled down and the career experience, how this informed his most masterful design, and then there's time for questions. he was born in connecticut in 1822, a pretty prosperous family. his father was a dry goods merchant, and as was the hat in that era, olmsted was sent away for schooling. he entered into a series of arrangements with poor country parsons. they were besieged and beset. they had their par soggage du

while pretending to learn the useful trade of surveying, olmstead wandered around,

and my book is called "genius of place: the life of frederick law olmstead." olmsted was a pretty restless genius, so it makes the most sense to break my speech up into a couple of different parts. first i'm going to describe the really circuitous path he took to become a landscape architect, and then i'm going to briefly describe some of his greatest achievements in the context of how all the various eddies he traveled and career experience, how those actually informed his most masterful design. and then there'll be time for questions, of course. olmsted was born in hartford, connecticut n1822. he was born into a pretty prosperous family. his father was a dry goods merchant, and as was the habit in that era, olmsted was sent away for his schooling. he entered into a whole series of arrangements with really poor country parsons. these parsons, they were besieged and beset. they had, they had their parsonage duties, many of them were running small farms on the side in order to make extra income, and that left them very little time and very little focus for thei

observations was the south in this time was in the grip of a kind of cultural poverty, and frederick olmstead ascribed the poverty to the fact that people lived at such great remove one from another that no kind of cultural commerce was possible. plantation owners lived far apart, and frederick olmstead noticed they just didn't get together and share ideas and share information, and so the park system, what this was meant to do was to allow people to ente together .. different neighborhoods within a city and mix in a democratic experiment. i'll close by saying it's wonderful to be here in washington where an example of frederick olmstead's landscape is so very true to how he originally designed it, and the wonderful thing is here in the 21st century, you can find his work still in tact and find his vivid democratic spirit so very alive. thank you very much. [applause] [applause] [inaudible conversations] >> peaceful abolition of slavery affecting frederick olmstead in his persuasion of england of joining the south in the civil war? >> let's see, the basis of abolitionism is greasing. he was a