Observing and Absorbing on the Road
The urbanization Olmsted witnessed on the road, along with his interest in rural issues, informed his later work as a landscape architect. While touring Britain in 1850, Olmsted visited England's Birkenhead Park; it was a visit that proved influential in his eventual career path… Birkenhead Park–one of the first open spaces established by the British government–made such an impression on Olmsted that he submitted a piece in Andrew J. Downing's Horticulturalist about the park, which Downing published in the context of building public support for the concept of Central Park.
