Frederick Law Olmsted (1822-1903) was a journalist and landscape designer who is regarded as the founder of American landscape architecture: his most famous achievement was Central Park in New York, of which he became the superintendent in 1857, but he also worked on the design of parks in many other burgeoning American cities, and was called by Charles Eliot Norton 'the greatest artist that America has yet produced'. His A Journey in the Seaboard Slave States was originally published in 1856, and arose from journeys in the south which Olmsted, a passionate abolitionist, had undertaken in 1853-4. This edition was published in two volumes in 1904, with the addition of a biographical sketch by his son and an introduction by William P. Trent. It abounds in fascinating and witty descriptions of Olmsted's encounters and experiences in a society which was on the verge of overwhelming change.

Table of Contents

Volume I: Preface; Frederick Law Olmsted; Introduction; 1. Washington; 2. Virginia; 3. The economy of Virginia; 4. The political experience of Virginia; 5. North Carolina; Volume II: 1. South Carolina and Georgia; 2. Rice and its culture; 3. Experimental political economy of South Carolina and Georgia; 4. Alabama; 5. Experience of Alabama; 6. Louisiana.