I have read extensively regarding the development of the National Parks of America. I was captivated by the fireside Yosemite camping stories of John Muir and Teddy Roosevelt. A new book, OLMSTED AND YOSEMITE, authored by Rolf Diamant and Ethan Carr, casts a new light upon the incubation of what would become America’s National Parks. Step aside Muir and TR.

Enter Frederick Law Olmsted, the co-creator of New York City’s Central Park. Olmsted’s career began not as a landscape architect but as an educated engineer followed by an impressive resume as a journalist for the newspaper that became the New York Times. He traveled the antebellum south just prior to the outbreak of the Civil War and reported on the deplorable condition of slavery and the devastation of much of the agricultural land there by over planting. It was a social education for Olmsted that greatly impacted his future contributions to the American landscape.

Olmsted came away from his southern sojourn with a strong belief that his work on New York’s Central Park should become a mirror of inclusiveness and a demonstration of how a democracy could act to benefit all of its citizens. Olmsted believed that parks and open spaces available to everyone could become a uniting factor following the war. It was that philosophy that drew him to California and Yosemite and the creation in 1865 of the Preliminary Report upon the Yosemite and the Big Tree Grove . The complete report is appended in the book. Many believe that this work is the basis of what became America’s National Parks, and more importantly the future philosophy behind their design.

You will meet many important contributors to our national parks in this book. Enjoy.

OLMSTED AND YOSEMITE is an important look at why America’s National Parks are such a cherished part of the nation’s landscape.