the magazine olmsted was working for went belly up. olmsted lost his job. olmsted was short on coal. he owed money to everybody he knew. he had a hole in his shoe, didn't have a proper hat. he decided to take a job that was an incredible come down for someone who had been traveling in such lofty circles, rubbing shoulders is emerson. he took a job in which he started clearing a really scruffy unattractive piece of land knocking down shanties and clearing swamps on an ugly piece of land that was named for its position in the middle of new york city called central park. olmsted was clearing this land for someone else's design. enter call vox. he was an english trained architect. he took a look at the plans, and he was disgusted. he couldn't believe the amateur design. vox had friends in high places. he designed the 5th avenue mansion of a board members of the future central park. he approached the board in saying, first of all, this is a terrible design for the park. i suggest that you get rid of it. second, vox said, in england where i'm from, if you want th

at this point vox sought out olmsted to see if olmsted wanted to be partners. now, for these purposes voxth could not have cared a whit about olmsted's high profile, about the fact that he's been part of the literary republic,bc that he'd been an abolitionist. that meant nothing to vox.nari the reason vox wanted to partner with olmsted was because olmsted had been out on this scruffy piece of land knocking down shanties and draining swamps, and vox perceived that if they partnered up, they would have a leg up in the competition u because olmsted literally knew t the lay of the land. so olmsted and vox, they partnered up for the competition, and the only way to describe it, it was kind of parallel to his earlier southern reporting. re in this case nothing could have prepared vox, nothing could have prepared anyone for what incredible ideas olmsted brought to this design. and when they turned in the design, it was the clear winner. there were 33 different peopleen who entered the design competition.mpet 33 of them -- 32 of them produced designs that would rat som

at this point his father decided time for olmsted to buckle down and to become more serious. so his father are arranged for him to move to brooklyn, got an apartment in brooklyn and also got him a job in manhattan where he would be working for an importing firm. now olmstead was deeply lonely in brooklyn while he was deeply lonely there he also hated the job working for the importing firm. he hated the fact that it was a desk job, he did the long hours and the regimentation. there was really only one thing about the job that olmsted like to come and the was periodically he got to go on board the ships and inventory their wares and while doing this olmstead had a new idea of something that he might like to do with his life. he decided he wanted to become a sealer. once again this made sense. sailing was one of the professions available to people in that era. they didn't have much formal schooling he came out very honestly a whole long line if he went back generation after generation had gone to sea. so in april of 1843, he set out on board a ship called [inaudible] headed for

it's been really fun, and my book is called a genius of place, the life of frederick olmsted.was a pretty restless genius so i thought it makes the most sense to break my speech up into a couple different parts. first i'm going to describe the path that he took to becoming an architect and then briefly describe some of his greatest achievements, some of his greatest designs in the context of how he traveled and how the sexually informs his masterful design and then there will be time for questions of course. olmstead was born in hartford connecticut in 1822. he was born into a pretty prosperous family. his father was a merchant and as was the habit in that era, olmstead was sent away for his schooling. he entered into a series of arrangements with really poor country parsons. they were besieged and bis said. they had their parsonage duties many of them running small farms on the side to make extra income and that left them very little time and focus for their thirdx$ role as educators. he was mischievous as a boy so he took full what vantage of the situation. he was in the hab

plantation owners lived far apart, and olmsted noticed that 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 come together from all different backgrounds and all different neighborhoods within the city and mix in a democratic experiment, and so i wanted to close by saying it's wonderful to be here in washington where an example of olmsted's landscape is so very true to how he originally designed it, and the wonderful thing is here in 21st century, there's so many places where you can go in america, find olmsted's work in tact, and find his vivid democratic spirit so very alive. thank you very much. .. [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 th

washington, biographer justin martin presents his book, "genius of place: the life of there'd rick law olmsted. ". >> we'll start now. my name is kevin merida, i'm the national editor of ""the washington post,"" and we have been proud charter sponsors of this festival since the beginning 11 years ago. i'd like to say on behalf of the library of congress, welcome to the festival, and we hope that everyone's having a wonderful day celebrating the joy of reading here on the national mall. before we begin i want to say that the