Tony Horwitz holds a special place in the pantheon of Olmsted authors and fans. His book, Spying on the South, offers a powerful account of Horwitz’s own trek retracing Olmsted’s odyssey through the American South. Olmsted went South as an undercover reporter for the New York Daily Times as the country barreled towards Civil War and a contested election. Horwitz went south decades later, finding regional differences that had changed little since Olmsted’s earlier journey.
In May 2019, tragically, Horwitz died suddenly during his book tour. In a personal reflection written for us after his death, Geraldine Brooks, his widow and a Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist, described her husband’s writing process:
“As Tony travelled and researched that book, Fred more or less moved in with us. He would join us each evening at the dinner table, as Tony recounted Fred’s visionary take on the nature of social division, and his growing conviction that shared green spaces might provide both a source of healing and a means to bridge inequality.”
A scholar’s personal library can offer moving insights into an author’s identity— moments of acquisition of prized books; favorite passages in a particular volume, noted in the margin or within the book covers. An avid reader knows his collection like a close friend, easily locating favorite titles, favorite passages and their neighboring titles. That’s why, when we lose a scholar, family and friends are often at a loss about what to do with all of their extraordinary books.
How exciting it was, then, to assist in finding the perfect home for Tony Horwitz’s Olmsted collection— the University of Virginia’s Center for Cultural Landscapes (CCL).
“I was thrilled when Dede Petri and the Olmsted Network asked me if the UVA Center for Cultural Landscapes would be interested in Tony Horowitz’s Olmsted reference books,” said Elizabeth Meyer, Director of the Landscape Studies Initiative of the CCL. “Dede introduced me to Geraldine Brooks, and I explained to her how we would add Tony’s books as a special section in our larger CCL Reference Library donated to us in 2021 by Elizabeth Barlow Rogers.”
Rogers, of course, helped revitalize Central Park in the 1980s and form the Central Park Conservancy. She is also a good friend of the Olmsted Network and former board member.
When asked about how she felt about the new home for her husband’s Olmsted library, Geraldine Brooks said:
“Tony’s work on Olmsted started with our very crowded bookshelves. I had asked him to consider giving away some of his long-ago college texts that he was unlikely to read again. While doing so he reconnected with The Cotton Kingdom, realized its brilliance and from that was born Spying on the South. Instead of culling the shelves, we acquired an extensive Olmsted library. That these books have now found a perfect home at the Center for Cultural Landscapes gives the story a lovely symmetry.”
The Center for Cultural Landscapes, based at the University of Virginia (UVA), creates new models of innovative cultural landscape stewardship in the region, the nation and around the globe. Its work focuses on increasing awareness of the historical, ecological and social value of cultural landscapes through scholarly research, site documentation and fieldwork, planning, preservation, management and design.
This is not the first time that the Olmsted Network has partnered with UVA to make Olmsted resources available to the public. In 2022, The Papers of Frederick Law Olmsted became available online through ROTUNDA: Digital Imprint of the University of Virginia Press. Read more!
