Frederick Law Olmsted and the World’s Columbian Exposition

Abstract

This article presents the following three arguments: that Frederick Law Olmsted and his partner Henry Sargent Codman played the decisive role in the selection of Jackson Park as the site of the World’s Columbian Exposition; that Olmsted and his partners largely determined the site plan for the exposition, though the planning process was fluid and ongoing; and that Olmsted made the Lagoon and Wooded Island a largely naturalistic counterpoint to the formality of the rest of the exposition grounds.