Charles Eliot was an American landscape architect and planner, whose most important legacy was to create a means of preserving natural scenery.
Background
Charles Eliot was born on November 1, 1859, in Cambridge, Massachusetts, the son of Charles William Eliot, president of Harvard University, and Ellen Derby Peabody. Charles had one brother, Samuel A. Eliot whom was a minister.
Charles Eliot was part of the Eliot family, a prominent family originating from Boston.
Education
His early education was received at home and in Europe, where the family spent nearly three of his first ten years. Later Eliot attended school in Cambridge.
He entered Harvard University in 1878, spending vacations in yachting and camping, and deriving especial benefit from the Champlain Society, a club-camp, which he organized for scientific study on Mt. Desert Island, Maine. This experience, which helped him to overcome some of his natural diffidence, brought out his qualities of leadership, organizing power, and persistence, which were notable throughout his professional work.
On receiving his Bachelor's degree from Harvard in 1882, he sought a field in which his natural tastes would find scope and was drawn to landscape architecture, then known in Boston largely through the work of Frederick Law Olmsted. Although no school in the country then offered preparation for this profession, several fundamental subjects were taught at the Bussey Institution, a branch of Harvard. There Eliot studied until, in April 1883, he was given the opportunity of an apprenticeship in Olmsted’s office, just established in Brookline.
In November 1885, Eliot sailed for a year’s study in Europe, visiting England, France, Italy, Germany, Holland, Denmark, Sweden, and Russia. He kept a record of his observations on gardens, parks, and scenery, which forms the beginning of the series of professional writings preserved in Charles Eliot, Landscape Architect.
Career
On his return to Boston, Eliot set up in independent practise as a landscape architect (December 1886), and met with increasing recognition and success. Some examples of his early work are the Longfellow Memorial and subdivision of the Norton estate in Cambridge, and White Park, Concord, New Hampshire.
In 1891 Eliot helped to create The Trustees of Public Reservations, which worked on behalf of land conservancy. With the support of the Massachusetts legislature, he created a privately-funded tax-exempt association to protect natural and historical resources in Massachusetts. (The word "public" was later dropped from the organization’s name, which is today known as The Trustees of Reservations). The following year, Eliot served as chief landscape architect for the Boston Metropolitan Park Commission. Green spaces like the Blue Hills, the Fells, Waverly Oaks, and areas along the Charles River were identified and preserved to meet specific goals and create a park system.
In March 1893, at Olmsted’s urgent invitation, he joined the Olmsted firm (which then became Olmsted, Olmsted & Eliot), and for four years was concerned with large public and private enterprises in many parts of the United States, still keeping his major interest in the development of the Boston metropolitan parks.
Returning from the Hartford parks early on March 25, 1897, he died suddenly of cerebro-spinal meningitis, thus cutting off a future of almost unlimited promise.
Achievements
Views
Quotations:
"Reservations of scenery are the cathedrals of the modern world. "
"We must make practice in thinking, or, in other words, the strengthening of reasoning power, the constant object of all teaching from infancy to adult age, no matter what may be the subject of instruction. "
Connections
On November 28, 1888, Charles Eliot married Mary Yale Pitkin of Philadelphia. This marriage produced four daughters.