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The History of Early American Landscape Design digital resource represents an inquiry into the language of early American landscape aesthetics and garden design in the colonial and national periods. Thousands of texts are combined with a corpus of more than 1700 images in order to trace the development of landscape and garden terminology from British colonial America to the mid-19th century. By placing terms in relation to representations in the visual record, the project clarifies and corrects their meanings, providing for more “accurate” histories of designed landscapes in early America.

The project is organized by 100 keywords, supported by 100 featured places and historical figures. Without claiming to be comprehensive, this project models an approach to the study of landscapes and gardens that helps scholars consider past cultural conditions, uncover former appearances, and better understand the experiences and meanings of designed environments as they were built, and also as they were imagined.

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  Anonymous, The Ample Grove, c. 1810-25

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  William Russell Birch, Plan of Springland, c. 1800

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  Tombstone of James F. Brown in the Cemetery of the Church of St. Luke

Introductory Essays

These essays first appeared in the original publication Keywords in American Landscape Design (Yale University Press, 2010) from which this site originated. The investigation into the history of early American landscape design has continued with the advantage of the digital platform and the addition of approximately one hundred individual pages dedicated to People and to Places to the original one hundred Keywords pages. These introductory essays remain a fundamental contribution to the project with insight and guidance on navigating its content.

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  The Evidence of American Garden History
  Therese O'Malley
  Charles Willson Peale, View of the garden at Belfield, 1816.

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  Writing the Landscape
  Elizabeth Kryder-Reid
  Cornelia Jefferson Randolph, attr., A Garden Seat by Mr. Jones, From Chamber's Kew, c. 1820.

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  Mode of Representations
  in American Landscape Design
  Anne L. Helmreich and Therese O'Malley
  Robert Mills, Picturesque View of the Building, and Grounds in front, 1841.

Read more about the Center's research projects.

Banner Images:

Nicolino Calyo, Harlem, the Country House of Dr. Edmondson, 1834

C. A. Hedin, “Front Elevation on Live Oak Street,” 1853

Thomas Jefferson, Plan of an orchard at Monticello, c. 1778

Robert Mills, Plan of the Mall, Washington, DC, 1841