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NPS Form 10.900 a OMB ApVoval No 1024-0018 United States Department of the Interior National Park Service • National Register of Historic Places Continuation Sheet Section number _8_ Page _10_ 8. Statement of Significance Context Statement: Historic Context: Public Parks The nineteenth century romantic or naturalistic era in the arts revered the American landscape. The veneration of natural and regional landscapes was one way of representing the stong populist and democratic political values that existed in the United States during the middle decades of the century. These political and social influences and their related aesthetic produced a uniquely Americn designed landscape --the public park. Unlike their counterparts in Europe, American public parks were not rooted in royal domain; beginning with the design for Central Park in New York (1858) by Frederick Law Olmsted, Sr. and Calvert Vaux, parks were created which represented the perceived value of preserving or creating natural (or naturalistic) outdoor spaces for the enjoyment and well-being of the people. Fundamental to the design of these public places was the presumed uplifting effect of rural scenery. This philosophy was translated by artists such as Olmsted into actual landcapes that emulated nature, • bringing naturalistic or rural scenery to the residents of densely populated, often dirty and polluted cities. Parks were soon recognized as therapeutic escapes from the congested city. The provision of parks as urban necessities for mental and physical breathing room was soon widely accepted and practiced in large and small cities alike. The earliest parks designed in the mid -19th century were conceived as singular elements. By the 1880's the concept of public parkland was extended to the planning and design of interconnected systems of parks: large and small open spaces woven together with a system of parkways and boulevards. Early examples of these park systems include Chicago's West Parks (Jenny, 1869) and South Parks (Olmsted and Vaux, 1869), the Emerald Necklace of Boston (Eliot, 1890), and the Minneapolis Park System (Cleveland, 1883). By the turn of the century, organizations such as the American Park and Outdoor Art Association promoted the development of urban park systems which provided opportunity for passive enjoyment of natural scenery, the protection of rapidly declining urban natural areas such as stream corridors, and the efficient planning of cities around a coordinated system of parks and boulevards. The City Beautiful Movement which followed the World's Columbian Exposition of 1893 further embraced the ideal of planning cities to include a network of parks and open space. The work of George Kessler is notable in the extension of the City Beautiful Ideal to the civic designs for the park systems of Kansas City, Denver, Dallas, Cincinnati, and Indianapolis. The notoriety and popularity of the park and boulevards of large American cities led to the emulation of these landscapes in small cities as well. Additional social movements were influential in the development of the American public park. Once reserved for passive enjoyment of nature, parks 0