Frederick E. Olmsted

Frederick Erskine Olmsted, also known as Fritz Olmsted, (November 8, 1872 – February 19, 1925) was an American forester and one of the founders of American forestry.[1][2] Through his work with the United States Forest Service, Olmsted helped establish the national forest system in the United States and helped train the next generation of Forest Service agents and college professors.[2][3][4]: 85  He was instrumental in the creation of at least twenty national forests in California and the Muir Woods National Monument.[5][4]: 88  He also wrote the Use of National Forest Resources (1905, 1907), a foundational Forest Service manual that laid the groundwork for the nation's enduring forest management system, elements of which remain in use today.[2][6]

Not to be confused with Frederick Law Olmsted.
This article is about the American forester. For the American artist and biophysicist, see Frederick E. Olmsted Jr.
Frederick E. Olmsted
Born
Frederick Erskine Olmsted

(1872-11-08)November 8, 1872
Hartford, Connecticut, U.S.
DiedFebruary 8, 1925(1925-02-08) (aged 52)
Palo Alto, California, U.S.
Resting placeCedar Hill Cemetery
Other namesFritz Olmsted
EducationYale University
Biltmore Forest School
Harvard University
University of Munich
Occupationforester
Employer(s)United States Forest Service
Fisher, Bryant, and Olmsted
Diamond Match Company
Known forNational Forests, one of the founders of American forestry
Board member ofSociety of American Foresters
ChildrenFrederick E. Olmsted Jr.

After leaving the Forest Service, Olmsted taught at Harvard University.[7] He also worked as was a consulting forester with practices in Boston and California.[2] His most important consultations resulted in fire management plans for the Canadian railways and for Mount Tamalpais in California.[8][1][2] Olmsted was a founder and president of the Society of American Foresters.[9]

Fritz Olmsted was the nephew of Frederick Law Olmsted, the influential landscape designer, and first cousin to landscape designers Frederick Law Olmsted Jr. and John Charles Olmsted.[10][9][11] He initially trained in forestry at the Biltmore Forest School, an educational outgrowth of his uncle's suggestions for Biltmore Estate. His son, Frederick Erskine Olmsted Jr., is noted as an artist with the Federal Art Project and the Public Works of Art Project.[12]

Early life and education

Olmsted was born in Hartford, Connecticut on November 8, 1872.[3][9][13] He was the son of Lucy Sawyer Hollister (born 1848) and Albert Harry Olmsted (1842–1929), a banker.[14][15][11] His father was a half-brother of acclaimed landscape designer Frederick Law Olmsted and uncle to Frederick Law Olmsted Jr. and John Charles Olmsted.[10][9][11]

Yale University varsity crew team 1892. Olmsted is in the middle of the front row.

Olmsted went to Hartford Public High School, graduating in 1891.[15][16] He then attended Yale University where he studied civil engineering, graduating from the Sheffield Scientific School with a Bachelor of Philosophy (Ph.B.) in 1894.[3][15] While there, he was a member of the Fraternity of Delta Psi (St. Anthony Hall) and a member of the committee that selected the winner of the senior class cup .[17][9] He was also the coxswain of the Yale Bulldogs' varsity crew team for three years.[18][9]

After working for two years and receiving an introduction to forestry at the Biltmore Forest School, Olmsted returned to college, attending graduate school at Harvard University in 1897 and 1898.[15][19] In the fall of 1897, he took courses at the University of Cambridge and Arnold Arboretum.[15]

Starting in the spring of 1898, Olmsted spent a year working and studying with foresters in the Black Forest in Baden, Germany.[15] He studied forestry under Dietrich Brandis at the University of Munich, receiving a diploma in 1899.[15][10][20] In November 1899, at the suggestion of Brandis, he studied practical forestry in the foothills of the Himalayas in India where most of the forests were under state control.[15][20] He returned to the United States in 1900.[4]: 67 

Career

Banking

After graduating from Yale, Olmsted worked for a year at George P. Bissell & Company, his father's bank in Hartford, Connecticut.[15][21] Although George P. Bissell & Company was the oldest private banking house in New England, the firm went into a receivership in 1896.[21]

Geological survey and forestry

In 1896, Olmsted joined the topographic mapping division of the United States Geological Survey (USGS) at the suggestion of his first cousin, Frederick Law Olmsted Jr.[3][15][20][lower-alpha 1] He spent eighteen months near Asheville, North Carolina, surveying and building trails and roads, as well as re-surveying the USGS Pisgah Quadrangle map.[15][20] While there, he met Dr. Carl A. Schenck, forester of the Biltmore Estate, and learned about career opportunities of the new field of forestry.[15] He left the USGS and worked for Schenck for a few months while attending the earliest incarnation of the Biltmore Forest School, which was founded by Schenck in 1896.[22][20]

Division of Forestry

On July 1, 1900, Olmsted was hired as an assistant forester by Gifford Pinchot, who headed the newly established Division of Forestry of the United States Department of Agriculture (now the United States Forest Service).[3] Pinchot was also a Yale University graduate and had previously worked with the forests at Biltmore Estate, where he was hired at the suggestion of Olmsted's uncle Frederick Law Olmsted.[10][23] Olmsted became a "boundary boy" for the Division of Forestry, locating the boundaries of the governmental forest reserves.[4]: 67  He typically spent the winters in Washington, D.C., working in the field during the season.[15]

Pinchot placed Olmsted in charge of the Subdivision of Forest Products in 1902 because, he said, Olmsted "was one of the most capable, experienced, and mature men of the office."[20] From 1902 to 1905, Olmsted supervised fifteen "boundary boys" in the newly created Boundary Division of the Bureau of Forestry and was charged with locating any remaining western public timber lands for inclusion in a reservation for management.[3][24][25] This process laid the foundation for the modern national forest system.[3]

Pinchot also asked Olmsted to rewrite the unpopular Forest Reserve Manual prepared by the Forest Service's predecessor, the General Land Office Division of Forestry.[4]: 69  Olmsted's assignment was to create a ''policy blueprint" that defined the forest reserves and their use, described the role of forestry service officers, and detailed how to address public claims and permits.[4]: 69  The Forest Service issued this new Use of National Forest Resources (commonly known as the Use Book) in July 1905 and a revision in June 1907.[13][26][6][4]: 69  It was not only an instructional book, with goals and regulations for Forest Service employees, but also one of the first administrative manuals for the United States government.[4]: 69  Olmsted changed the tone of the book, characterizing the Forest Service positively as an agency "willing to consider use under certain conditions".[4]: 69 

Olmsted became the California chief inspector in 1905 and the first district forester of District 5 in late 1908, working out of an office in the Merchants Exchange Building in San Francisco.[27][4]: 85, 112  District 5 included the national forests in California and western Nevada.[8] In a history of the U.S. Forest Service, Anthony Godfrey notes that during this era, "the district forester was likened to being an 'autonomous king' and overlord of a domain—controlled only by laws broadly interpreted and by general policy."[4]: 89  Olmsted had a passion for his work and a gift for supervising his team, which included Coert DuBois (Olmsted's brother-in-law), R. L. Frome, John H. Hatton, William G. Hodge, G. M. Homans, E. A. Lane, George B. Lull, George W. Peavey, and C. S. Smith.[3][4]: 85 

Although he had specific assignments such as surveying boundaries, tracking the size of timber sales, and submitting annual grazing statistics, Olmsted had total authority over staff and use of the district's money and supervised a team of around 140 district rangers and their supervisors.[4]: 89  In this capacity, he developed a field inspection system that was implemented throughout the Forest Service.[1] Anthony Godrey notes that Olmsted's team also sought to save the "West from itself through public forestry and with the West's consent and support, to break the monopoly and favor the little man."[4]: 89  They had to settle issues with the Homestead Forest Act which was passed by the United States Congress on June 11, 1906.[4]: 90  This Act required the Forest Service to review all lands to determine if they were better suited for agriculture than forestry, opening those that were for homesteading.[4]: 90  As a result, there was a land rush and the District 5 offices received some 12,000 applications for 1,144,359 acres (463,106 ha) of homesteading land—processing the applications and overseeing the program took a significant amount of time away from their main focus of forestry.[4]: 91  In addition to legal residents of the forest, Olmsted and his team also had to deal with illegal squatters within the national forests.[4]: 91  However, the main job of District 5 was timber management.[4]: 91 

In 1907, Olmsted presided over a meeting of forest supervisors in Yreka, Siskiyou County, California.[27] That same year, businessman and congressman William Kent wrote a letter to Pinchot and Olmsted about his efforts to donate 211 acres (85 ha) known as Muir Woods to the United States.[5] He had been told there was not a way for the government to accept this gift.[5] Olmsted visited the site and wrote a letter to the United States Secretary of the Interior requesting that Muir Woods become a national monument under the Antiquities Act.[5] President Theodore Roosevelt declared it Muir Woods National Monument on January 9, 1908.[5] Olmsted is credited as being vital to its establishment because of his creativity in interpreting United States laws and regulations.[5] Other sites receiving National Forest status under Olmsted's oversight include Angeles National Forest, Calaveras Big Tree National Forest, Cleveland National Forest, Eldorado National Forest, Inyo National Forest, Kern National Forest, Klamath National Forest, Lassen National Forest, Modoc National Forest, Mono National Forest, Monterey National Forest, Plumas National Forest, Santa Barbara National Forest, Sequoia National Forest, Shasta National Forest, Sierra National Forest, Stanislaus National Forest, Tahoe National Forest, and Trinity National Forest.[4]: 88 

In 1907, Olmsted was the first professional forester to conduct a detailed examination of Southeast Alaska’s forests, resulting in his recommendation to create the Tongass National Forest.[28]

In 1909, Olmsted served on a three-person committee to develop a plan for California's highway trees.[29] However, in January 1910, President William Howard Taft fired and replaced Pinchot as head of the Forest Service following the Pinchot–Ballinger controversy. Olmsted was stunned by the loss of his mentor.[4]: 96  That year was also the worst fire season in the United States since the creation of the Forest Service, burning 2,500,000 acres (1,000,000 ha) of national forests, but only 330,000 acres (130,000 ha) in the 278 forest fire's in Olmsted's district.[4]: 97  Olmsted noted, "If one-hundredth of the damage from fire this past summer had occurred in any German state, the whole forest force would have been promptly dismissed."[4]: 97  In December 1910, Olmsted convened a five-day meeting of District 5's supervisors,[4]: 97–98  where, though he never explicitly mentioned Pinchot by name, he began with a review of Pinchot's philosophy regarding the timber lands of the West.[4]: 98  Olmsted's meeting covered all of District 5's programs, including fire protection, grazing, reforestation, timber sales, wildlife, and working plans, as well as his belief in a decentralized decision-making process.[4]: 98  Because of this meeting, all forest supervisors were required to submit a forest protection plan and there were increases in the number of California's forest guards.[4]: 99 

Fisher, Bryant and Olmsted

In June 1911, Olmsted resigned from his job with the Forest Service.[1][30] He said he wanted to return to the forest and leave the administrative offices behind; he may also have missed working with Pinchot.[3][4]: 111  He became a consulting forester with the firm Fisher & Bryant, along with Professor Richard T. Fisher and Edward S. Bryant who were both graduates of Harvard University.[10][19][9] Renamed Fisher, Bryant and Olmsted, their offices were at 141 Milk Street in Boston, Massachusetts.[19][9] Olmsted left the firm by early 1913 for an opportunity in California but maintained a professional relationship with the renamed Fisher and Bryant, Inc.[10][31][2] Bryant left the firm in April 1914 to become an inspector for the United States forest service.[32]

Harvard University

In the spring semester of 1913, Olmsted taught forestry at Harvard University.[7] That same year, Harvard and Yale University had both lost most of their historic elms to damage caused by the gypsy moth, the leopard moth, and the brown-tail moth.[33] It was estimated that it would take fifty to 100 years before the campus trees were restored.[33] Olmsted noted that the universities neglected their historic trees because there was "a feeling was evident that the elms had always been there and always would be in spite of various setbacks."[33]

Consulting forester

In the fall of 1913, Olmsted moved back to California, working as a consulting forester out of San Francisco from 1913 to 1914 and Sausalito from 1914 to 1915.[9] He created regulations to prevent fires on the Canadian railways.[8] In 1913, he developed a plan to protect Mount Tamalpais and the surrounding area of Marin County from fires and organized the Tamalpais Fire Protection Association.[8][1][10][9] At Olmsted's request, legislation was submitted and adopted by the California legislature that established the Tamalpais Forest Fire District, the first formally incorporated mountain fire district in the state.[34] Olmsted was elected secretary of the Tamalpais Association in November 1915.[35] He also supervised the association's rangers for three years as its head patrolman, before stepping down in March 1917.[1][36]

During World War I, Olmsted again worked for the Forest Service.[9] He spent six months determining which lumber production was essential and nonessential.[9] In 1917, he moved his consulting forester office to Palo Alto, California where he conducted inspections of logging operations to improve efficiency and future land productivity.[37] He also created topographic maps and logging plans, appraised timber, estimated timber yields, and developed systems to prevent fires.[37]

The Diamond Match Company hired Olmsted "to introduce and supervise conservative cutting on its California holdings".[1] He worked for them until he retired in 1923.[4]: 111 

Professional affiliations

Olmsted was a founder of the Society of American Foresters (SAF).[9] He served as the SAF president from 1919 to 1921 and supported federal oversight of private cutting.[38][9][39]

Personal life

Olmsted married Florence Starbuck DuBois on September 13, 1909.[10][20] She was the daughter of Evelina Patterson Kimball and Dr. John C. DuBois, a graduate of Yale University.[9] They had two sons, Frederick Erskine Olmsted Jr. and Julian Olmsted.[10] Another child, DuBois Olmsted, died in infancy.[9] His son, Frederick, was an artist with the Federal Art Project and the Public Works of Art Project.[12]

In 1911, the family moved to Boston, Massachusetts.[19] They moved back to California in 1913.[9] In 1917, Olmsted hired architect Henry Higby Gutterson to design a shingle style house for his family at 773 Dolores Street on the campus of Stanford University.[10] The family moved there in 1918.[10] The relationship between Olmsted and Stanford University is unknown, although he did correspond with the university's president David Star Jordan from 1912 to 1919.[10] It is possible that Olmsted helped plan and plant Stanford University Arboretum as a consulting forester.[10] His uncle, Frederick Law Olmsted had created the master plan for the campus in 1888, but work had ended on the arboretum in 1891 before it was completed.[40][41]

Olmsted was a member of the Century Club in Washington, D.C., serving on its board of governors and as chairman of the committee of literature and art.[42] He was also a non-resident member of the Cosmos Club.[43] In addition, he was a member of Park Congregational Church in Hartford, Connecticut.[9]

In 1925, Olmsted died from liver cancer at his Dolores Street home in Palo Alto, California.[1][9][10] He was cremated at Cypress Hill Crematorium in San Francisco and buried in Cedar Hill Cemetery in Hartford, Connecticut.[10]

Selected publications

Notes
  1. Frederick Law Olmsted Jr.and Fritz Olmsted both graduated from Yale in 1894, but the former had previously apprenticed under his father at Biltmore Estate in Asheville, North Carolina. Since Fritz worked for the U.S. Geological Survey near Asheville, presumably his cousin's job suggestion was for the Asheville-Pisgah Quadrangle team rather than the U.S.G.S. in general.

References
  1. Du Bois, Coert (April 1925). "Frederick Erskine Olmsted". American Forests. 31 (375): 234 – via Google Books.
  2. Pinchot, Gifford; Sherman, E.A.; Bryant, Ralph (1925). "Notes: Frederick Erskine Olmsted". Journal of Forestry: 701 – via Google Books.
  3. "Frederick Erskine Olmsted 1872 - 1925". Journal of Forestry. 23 (4): 338–339. April 1, 1925 – via Google Books.
  4. Godfrey, Anthony (July 2005). The Ever-Changing View: A History of the National Forests in California, 1891-1987 (PDF). Washington, D.C.: Forest Service. United States Department of Agriculture. ISBN 1-59351-428-X.
  5. "Establishing Muir Woods National Monument". Save the Redwoods League. 2015-01-09. Retrieved 2022-05-13.
  6. "How the National Forests Serve the Public". Harper Advocate (Harper, Kansas). July 26, 1907. p. 3. Retrieved May 12, 2022 – via Newspapers.com.
  7. "Harvard University". Boston Evening Transcript. February 15, 1913. p. 9. Retrieved May 12, 2022 – via Newspapers.com.
  8. "Forested Engaged to Protect Mt. Tamalpais". The San Francisco Call. August 24, 1913. p. 33. Retrieved May 12, 2022 – via Newspapers.com.
  9. "Frederick Erskine Olmsted, Ph.B, 1894" (PDF). Obituary Record of Yale Graduates: Bulletin of Yale University. 21 (22): 1495. August 1, 1925 – via Connecticut General Assembly.
  10. Newfield, Elsbeth; Adams, Marian Leib (2006). "773 Dolores (11 Dolores), 1917, Shingle style house" (PDF). Stanford Historical Society. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2015-02-24. Retrieved 2014-09-25.
  11. "Century Archives – The Century Association Archives Foundation". centuryarchives.org. Retrieved 2023-10-02.
  12. "Frederick Olmsted - Biography". www.askart.com. Retrieved 2023-10-04.
  13. Cermak, Robert W. (2005). Fire in the Forest: A History of Forest Fire Control on the National Forests in California, 1898-1956. USDA Forest Service. p. 54. ISBN 978-1-59351-429-7.
  14. Case, Lafayette Wallace. The Hollister family of America: Lieut John Hollister of Wethersfield, Connecticut and His Descends. Chicago : Fergus Print. Co., 1898, p. 516. via Internet Archive
  15. The Decennial Record of the Class of Ninety-Four, Sheffield Scientific School of Yale University. New Haven, Connecticut: The Tuttle, Morehouse & Taylor Press. 1911. pp. 60–61 – via Hathi Trust.
  16. Quadrennial catalogue of the Hartford Public High School 1904. Hartford, Connecticut: Hartford Press. 1905. pp. 101–102.
  17. Yale Banner vol. 51.New Haven, Connecticut: Yale University, 1892. p. 159. via Hathi Trust.
  18. Yale Banner vol. 51.New Haven, Connecticut: Yale University, 1892. p. 187. via Hathi Trust.
  19. "Graduate Notes". Harvard Engineering Journal. 12: 49. 1913. hdl:2027/nyp.33433108134564 – via Hathi Trust.
  20. Schenck, Carl A. (1953). The Biltmore Immortals. Germany: Charles A. Schenck. pp. 143–145.
  21. "Albert H. Olmsted, 85, Dies in California". Hartford Courant. Hartford, Connecticut. 1929-06-11. p. 27. Retrieved 2023-10-02 – via Newspapers.com.
  22. Fifty Years of Forestry in the U.S.A. R. Kirby Winters, ed. Washington, D.C.: The Society of American Foresters, 1950. p. 303. via Hathi Trust.
  23. McQuillan, Alan G. (November 1992). "Postmodern Forestry: Olmsted and Pinchot Began a Circular Century of U.S. Forestry". Inner Voice. Eugene, Oregon: AFSEEE (Association of Forest Service Employees for Ethics and Environment).
  24. duBois, Coert. “Trail Blazers.” Forest History Newsletter 9, no. 3 (1965): 14. via JSTOR
  25. Stark, Peter L. (2019). Field Organization and Administrative History of the National Forest System (PDF). Forest Service Museum. p. 22. Retrieved October 2, 2023.
  26. "1905 Use Book". Forest History Society. Retrieved 2022-05-13.
  27. "Forest Supervisors of Klamath and Shasta Hold Joint Session". The Sacramento Bee (Sacramento, California). November 13, 1907. p. 7. Retrieved May 12, 2022 – via Newspapers.com.
  28. Lewis, Jamie (September 10, 2010). "Tongass National Forest Celebrates Another Anniversary". Peeling Back the Bark. Forest History Society. Retrieved 2023-10-11.
  29. "Plan for Highway Trees for California". Pacific Rural Press. May 8, 1909. p. 353. Retrieved May 13, 2022.
  30. Godfrey, Anthony. The Search for Forest Facts: A History of the Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station, 1926-2000. General Technical Report. PSW-GTR-233. Albany, CA: U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, Pacific Southwest Research Station. 2013. p. 51
  31. "Graduate Notes". Harvard Engineering Journal. 12 (1): 49. April 1913 – via Google Books.
  32. Secretary's Third Report Harvard College Class of 1906. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Crimson Printing Co. June 1916. pp. 58–59. Retrieved September 30, 2023 – via Google Books.
  33. "A Lesson in Loss". Wisconsin State Journal (Madison, Wisconsin). June 17, 1913. p. 12. Retrieved May 12, 2022 – via Newspapers.com.
  34. Clar, C. Raymond (1959). California Government and Forestry from Spanish Days Until the Creation of the Department of Natural Resources in 1927. Sacromento: State of California Department of Natural Resources, Division of Forestry. p. 411. Retrieved October 2, 2023.
  35. "Fire Association Elects Officers". The Marin Journal (San Rafael, California). November 18, 1915. p. 3. Retrieved May 13, 2022 – via California Digital Newspaper Collection.
  36. "S. R. Black Succeeds Olmsted as Head Patrolman". Mill Valley Record. March 24, 1917. p. 4. Retrieved May 13, 2022.
  37. "Personalities". Wood-Preserving. IV (2): 34. 1917. hdl:2027/njp.32101049962481 – via Hathi Trust.
  38. "Protect Forests, Demand in Report". Evening Star (Washington, D.C.). January 6, 1920. p. 15. Retrieved May 12, 2022 – via Newspapers.com.
  39. Brown, P. E. “Section O--Agriculture and Associated Societies.” Science 55, no. 1430 (May 26, 1922): 576, via JSTOR
  40. "Olmsted's master campus plan". Stanford 125. 2015-11-23. Retrieved 2022-07-24.
  41. "Stanford's Early Landscape History". trees.stanford.edu. Retrieved 2022-07-24.
  42. "Century Club Elects Officers". Evening Star (Washington, D.C.). January 19, 1906. p. 9. Retrieved May 12, 2022 – via Newspapers.com.
  43. Cosmos Club Annual Report. (Washington, D.C.: The Cosmos Club, 1925). p. 3.
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