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ABSTRACT
For four years, Frederick G. Todd (1876–1948) studied and practiced with the Boston-based Olmsted Brothers, the seminal landscape architecture and town planning firm. The Olmsteds executed ambitious plans for parks, park systems, urban design, and suburban development according to the pioneering design principles of Frederick Law Olmsted Sr and his two sons, John Charles and Frederick Law Jr. In 1900, Todd left the firm to establish the first landscape architecture office in Canada. While Todd was deeply influenced by the ideas of Olmsted Sr and his sons, he arguably had more direct impact on Canadian city development than his mentors. Many Todd projects survive as treasured open spaces, and sought-after residential enclaves. However, despite Todd’s impressive career his reputation remains overshadowed by the legacy of the Olmsteds.
Notes on contributor
Nancy Pollock-Ellwand has a Ph.D. in Planning and is a Fellow of the Canadian Society of Landscape Architects. She also acts as a cultural landscape specialist to the International Council of Monuments and Sites, and in that role, she is currently serving on the World Heritage Evaluation Panel.
Notes
1 Jacobs, “Frederick G. Todd and the Creation of Canada’s Urban Landscape,” 27.
2 Massachusetts Agricultural College (1893–1897).
3 Olmsted Sr (1822–1903) started a landscape architectural firm in 1858 with Calvert Vaux (1824–1895), collaborating on New York’s Central Park. Later in 1877 Olmsted Sr completed the design for Montreal’s Mount Royal Park. Olmsted Sr entered numerous partnerships that most notably included his stepson, John Charles Olmsted (1852–1920) and son, Frederick Law Olmsted Jr (1870–1957). (Pollock-Ellwand, “The Olmsted Firm in Canada”; and Peterson, “Frederick Law Olmsted Sr. and Frederick Law Olmsted, Jr. The Visionary and the Professional,” 37–54).
4 Olmsted Associates Records, (Series B-22-23, 1896–1914 and 1931), Job #185, G.T. Fulford. ‘We beg to inform you that Mr. Frederick G. Todd, former a planting assistant in our office, has left us and set up an office for himself in Montreal … ’ (27 January 1900).
5 ASLA Backgrounder, Frederick G. Todd.
6 Sutton, ed., Civilizing American Cities, 197–220.
7 Birnbaum and Karson, eds., Pioneers of American Landscape Design; Petersen, “Frederick Law Olmsted Sr. and Frederick Law Olmsted, Jr.,” 37–54.
8 Beveridge and Rocheleau, Frederick Law Olmsted.
9 Pollock-Ellwand, “Rickson Outhet.”
10 Pollock-Ellwand, “Gordon Culham.”
11 Montreal Gazette, “Married,” 3.
12 Images Montreal.
13 Infoplease.
14 On-line Lovell, 109.
15 Noting there were landscape designers doing civic parks and estates in locations across Canada including H.A. Englehardt and C.E. Woolverton in Ontario (von Baeyer and Crawford, Garden Voices, 146–7); William Pearce and William Saunders in Alberta (Donaldson, “For Beauty and Use,” 75–83).
16 Pollock-Ellwand, “Rickson Outhet,” 145.
17 On-line Lovell, 939.
18 Olmsted Associates Records. Todd was noted in many Montreal-based Olmsted jobs such as Kemp, Ross, and Angus. Also see, Pollock-Ellwand, “The Olmsted Firm in Canada.”
19 Montreal Gazette, “City Hall Prey to Fire Early This Morning,” 1.
20 As per a conversation, October 2012, with Vincent Asselin, Fellow, Canadian Society of Landscape Architects, October 2012.
21 Municipal Review of Canada, “The Late Frederick Todd,” 1–2.
22 In Montreal he variously served as the Director of Parks and Playgrounds Association and Community Garden League; Montreal City Improvement League, Vice President; President, Quebec Horticultural Federation; and a member of the Montreal Town Planning Commission, Montreal Art Association, Arts Club, Rotary Club of Montreal; and the Engineer’s Club and Municipal Services Bureau (see, Jacobs, “Frederick G. Todd and the Creation of Canada’s Urban Landscape,” 27–34; Canadian Encyclopedia. “Todd, Frederick Gage”; Canadian Newspaper Service, “Frederick Todd”; and The Canadian Who’s Who 1936–37. “Frederick G. Todd.”
23 Journal of the Town Planning Institute of Canada. “Town Planning Institute,” Vol. 1; and, “Officers and Members,” 10–12.
24 Carver, Compassionate Landscape.
25 Municipal Review of Canada, “Honor for a Canadian Landscape Architect,” 2.
26 The Montreal Daily Star, February 16, 1948, 15.
27 Ibid. Todd represented the Civic Improvement League to the City Council, from the inception of that 99-person council.
28 Municipal Review of Canada, “Historic Saint Helen’s Island Park … Designed by Frederick G. Todd,” 11.
29 Ibid., 13.
30 Olmsted Sr’s seminal address to the American Social Science Association noting the health benefits of parks. Journal of Social Science, 147–64.
31 Bellman, “Mount Royal Montreal,” 16–20.
32 Pollock-Ellwand, Planning Perspectives, 289.
33 Olmsted, Mount Royal, 13.
34 Beveridge et al., The Master List.
35 Todd, “Character in Park Design,” 8–9.
36 Ibid, 321–2.
37 Ibid., 321.
38 Beveridge, Mount Royal in the Works of Frederick Law Olmsted, 7.
39 Ibid.
40 Ibid.
41 Todd, Esthetic Forestry.
42 Ibid., 5.
43 Manitoba Free Press, Suburban (Assiniboine) Park, 4; Plan by Todd, 7; and Mr. Todd and Assiniboine Park, 15. And in the Winnipeg Tribune (“Winnipeg News,” 1). Also see, MacDonald, A City at Leisure; Williams, Landscape Architecture in Canada, 226.
44 Todd, The Municipal Review of Canada. Also see, The Grand Concourse Authority, Bowring Park Master Plan, Main Report.
45 Schuyler and Kaliss, eds. The Papers of Frederick Law Olmsted, 842 (citing the Olmsted Associate Records (Series A19:815).
46 Todd, Esthetic Forestry, 12.
47 Todd, Quebec Battlefields Park Report, 1–2.
48 Ibid., 1.
49 Ibid.
50 Ibid., 9.
51 Jacobs, “Frederick G. Todd and the Creation of Canada’s Urban Landscape,” 28. Also noting in that article that Todd did the same kind of knitting of park edges with the Wascana Park plan in 1907 for Saskatchewan’s new parliamentary buildings in Regina.
52 The Municipal Review of Canada. “The Late Frederick Todd,” 1–2; Todd, “St. Helen’s Island Park,” 2 (plan).
53 Wright, “Planned Beautification in Canada,” 11–13.
54 Municipal Review of Canada, “Historic Saint Helen’s Island Park … Designed by Frederick G. Todd,” 14.
55 Todd, “St. Helen’s Island Park.” Todd noted that the Park was within walking distance of 100,000 people, many underprivileged and in great need of rest and recreation.
56 The Municipal Review of Canada, “Historic Saint Helen’s Island Park … Designed by Frederick G. Todd,” 20.
57 Todd describing it, “as the greatest feature of the relief at present being carried out … ” (Montreal Gazette, “St. Helen’s Island Work is Outlined,” 17).
58 Editorial showing that this was not an isolated case with the description of Todd’s depression era work for the industrial community of Valleyfield and its Sauvé Park. (The Municipal Review of Canada, “Utilizing Relief Funds for Parks and Playgrounds,” 21–2). Also see, Montreal) Gazette, May 6, 1937, 15; and, ‘Work of St Helen’s Island will continue during the winter months, employing some 400 men … .’ Montreal Gazette, “Quebec Hopes for Ottawa Aid to Continue Relief Work in 1937,” 13.
59 Todd, “St. Helen’s Island Park,” 3.
60 Ibid.
61 Ibid.
62 Todd, “Character in Park Design,” 321.
63 Klaus. “A Philosophy of Urban Landscape Design,” 277–96.
64 Pollock-Ellwand, “The Olmsted Firm in Canada” ().
65 Todd, Preliminary Report to the Ottawa Improvement Commission.
66 Canadian Federal Plan Commission, Report.
67 Greber, Plan for the National Capital. See also, Gordon, “A City Beautiful Plan for Canada’s Capital”; and “Fredrick G. Todd and the Origins of the Park System in Canada’s Capital.”
68 National Capital Commission, The Plan for Canada’s Capital.
69 Todd, Preliminary Report to the Ottawa Improvement Commission, 4.
70 Olmsted Sr, Horticulturalist, 227–45.
71 Olmsted Sr, The Yosemite Valley.
72 Ibid., 1. Also see, Gordon, “Although the OIC’s [Ottawa Improvement Commission’s] Mandate Only Covered Ottawa,” 102.
73 Todd, Preliminary Report to the Ottawa Improvement Commission, 2–3.
74 Gordon, Town and Crown.
75 U.S. Senate Committee, Report.
76 As Gordon noted (2016, Chapter 6) there was a political risk for Todd not to adopt the ‘Washington of the North’ approach which Prime Minister Wilfrid Laurier favoured at the time.
77 Ottawa Evening Journal, “The Washington of the North.”
78 Todd, Preliminary Report to the Ottawa Improvement Commission, 3.
79 Olmsted, Jr, “The Town-Planning Movement in America.”
80 Todd, Preliminary Report to the Ottawa Improvement Commission, 2.
81 Todd’s park design principles influenced municipal officials. See speech by Edmonton’s Mayor to the Canadian Municipalities convention in 1913 (Dominion, 14).
82 ‘I am of the opinion that future generations would consider these woods (in area ravines) one of the most valuable natural assets of the city.’ (Todd letter to Edmonton City Clerk, April 5, 1907, 5).
83 Municipal Journal and Engineer, “Boston’s Parkways” and, Olmsted, Sr, Seventh Annual Report.
84 Ibid. 3.
85 Todd, Letter to Mayor of Strathcona, W.D. Mills, 2.
86 Donaldson, “For Beauty and Use,” 75–83.
87 Lyle Dick also notes that at the time of the plan although not fully adopted did affect the installation of a wide range of plant material in the valley. (“The Greening of the West”).
88 News release from then City of Edmonton Mayor Mandel (North America's Largest Urban Parkland Receives $72.9-Million Investment, City of Edmonton, January 23, 2013).
89 Olmsted, Vaux & Co., Preliminary Report … Riverside. For a critique on the ‘Picturesque Enclaves’ of suburbia, see, Hayden, Building Suburbia, 45–70.
90 Ibid., #3276- Uplands, Victoria, BC; McCann, Imagining Uplands; and, McCann, “Suburbs of Desire.”
91 Beveridge et al., The Master List, Job #’s 3752- Sunalta, Calgary, AB.
92 Ville Mont-Royal/Town of Mount Royal, 1987.
93 Cauchon, “Town Planning,” 165–71.
94 An example of a garden suburb designed by Adams was Lindlea, Ottawa (see, Delaney, “The Garden Suburb of Lindenlea, Ottawa,” 151–65).
95 Simpson, Thomas Adams and the Modern Planning Movement. Also see Adam’s writings such as ‘The British Point of View’, 1911.
96 ‘ … the Canadian Northern Railway, the second of the transcontinental lines, has a record of one mile a day for the past fifteen years’, and creation of urban centres along the way. Dominion (n.d.), 165. Also see, Regehr, The Canadian Northern Railway.
97 Dominion, “Port Mann Will Be a Notable Centre for Exports and Industries,” 126–8; Schuster, British Columbia Magazine, 178–83.
98 Collard, Montreal Yesterdays, 315; and, Patterson, “Growing Through a Mountain,” 15.
99 Dominion, “The Miracle of Modern Colonization in Canada,” 167.
100 Ibid., 148.
101 See Corboz (“Ville Mont-Royal, cite-jardin viturvienne,” 3–16) on hexagonal planning. Notably, American planner John Nolen’s plans shared similar elements of radiating avenues and circuitous road alignments (Adams, The Design of Residential Areas, 173 and 243).
102 Burnham and Bennett, Plan of Chicago (reprint).
103 Miller, Hampstead Garden Suburb, 2006.
104 Todd, “Point Grey, B.C.,” 147.
105 Stern et al., Paradise Planned.
106 Patterson, “Growing Through a Mountain,” 15.
107 Rybczynski, A Clearing in the Distance.
108 Frederick Law Olmsted: Designing America. PBS production, 2014. www.pbs.org/show/frederick-law-olmsted-designing-america/.
109 National Park Service, “Frederick Law Olmsted National Historic Site.”
110 New York Times, “National News Briefs.”
111 Mountain Xpress, “The North Carolina Arboretum Unveils Frederick Law Olmsted Statue.”
112 “F.L.Olmsted is Dead” (The New York Times, August 29, 1903, n.p.)
113 Association des Architects Paysagistes du Quebec (accessed 28 December 2016). https://aapq.org/category/categorie-de-reconnaissance/association-des-architects-paysagistes-du-quebec/prix-frederic.
114 Commission de toponymie du Quebec (accessed 26 October 2017). www.toponymie.gouv.qc.ca/ct/ToposWeb/Fiche.aspx?no_seq=42905.
115 E.g. Hartland MacDougall, Dorval, PQ; Sir Edward Clouston, Peel St. 1894; Clouston’s large country house near Senneville; Son of L.J. Forget – Rodolphe Forget de Carlevoix at Mount Murray Seigniory; W.M. Mackenzie, TO, President of the CN Railway (who was involved with Point Grey). (Olmsted Associates Records, Series B).
116 Olmsted Associates Records (Series B22-3), Job#180, Louis-Joseph, Forget, Senneville, September 24, 1900, 1.
117 indicates Todd has 106 commissions, and the Olmsteds 95 (Pollock-Ellwand, Planning Perspectives; and ).