The Wooded Island in the fairgrounds of the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition.
On the anniversary of the death of Frederick Law Olmsted (April 26, 1822 – August 28, 1903), we endeavor that the memory of his name and personality is not dimmed in the passage of years. This tribute to Olmsted’s design of the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition comes from the May 3, 1893, issue of Garden and Forest, written just after Opening Day on the fairgrounds.
In the throng who witnessed on Monday the Columbian Exposition few probably realized that the harmony of the scene and the perfection and convenience of the whole scheme of arrangement were due to the genius of one man, Frederick Law Olmsted. Many others have brought to this enterprise their gifts of labor, devotion, artistic training and the enthusiasm born of a great opportunity, but the spark of genius which has produced a single and consistent work of art, changing the sandy and uninviting waste of Jackson Park into a marvel of stately beauty, sprung from his brain. Of this the world may still be ignorant, but his associates realize and proclaim it; and the architects, sculptors and painters who have been inspired to their sincerest efforts feel that their work serves a nobler purpose, because the labor of each contributed to the harmonious development and expression of his comprehensive idea.
At the end of a few months the visible result of the labors of the group of remarkable artists who have built the Columbian Exposition will have disappeared, but their work will live in the educational influences, direct and indirect, which it must exert on the people of this country. The immediate results will pass away, but the light which has been kindled on the shores of Lake Michigan will make American homes happier and more beautiful from one end of the continent to the other.
The foremost artist which the New World has yet produced, Mr. Olmsted, has been singularly fortunate in impressing himself during his own life upon his time and people, and in living to see with his own eyes the development and perfection of his greatest conceptions. The memory of his name and personality may be dimmed in the passage of years, for it is the fate of architects to be lost in their work, but millions of people now unborn will find rest and refreshment in the contemplation of smiling landscapes which he has made, and will enjoy the shade of trees which he has planted. No American has been more useful in his time or has made a more valuable and lasting contribution to civilization in this country.
The Wooded Island in Jackson Park today.