"Much of the ground-laying of national park policy came from recommendations on the management of Yosemite Valley by eminent landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted, creator of New York's Central Park. In his 1865 report to the governor of California, he laid the philosophical foundations of preservation for inspirational purposes and made explicit recommendations on such matters as concession operations, development, scientific protection, and interpretation" ( from "The Early Years")

This first passage demonstrates a lyrical style of expression toward the natural world, one that is idealized, romantic, and medicinal!

1.Flowering shrubs of sweet fragrance and balmy herbs abound in the meadows, and there is everywhere a delicate odor of the prevailing foliage in the pines and cedars. The water of the streams is soft and limpid, as clear as crystal, abounds with trout and, except near its sources, is, during the heat of the summer, of an agreeable temperature for bathing. In the lower part of the valley there are copious mineral springs, the water of one of which is regarded by the aboriginal inhabitants as having remarkable curative properties. A basin still exists to which weak and sickly persons were brought for bathing. The water has not been analyzed, but that it possesses highly tonic as well as other medical qualities can be readily seen. In the neighboring mountains there are also springs strongly charged with carbonic acid gas, and said to resemble in taste the Empire Springs of Saratoga.

This second passage illustrates an aesthetic of the sublime:

2.The union of the deepest sublimity with the deepest beauty of nature, not in one feature or another, not in one part or one scene or another, not in any landscape that can be framed by itself, but all around and wherever the visitor goes, constitutes the Yo Semite the greatest glory of nature. No photograph or series of photographs, no paintings ever prepare a visitor so that he is not taken by surprise, for could the scenes be faithfully represented the visitor is affected not only by that upon which his eye is at any moment fixed, but by all that with which on every side it is associated, and of which it is seen only as an inherent part. For the same reason no description, no measurements, no comparisons are of much value. Indeed the attention called by these to points in some definite way remarkable, by fixing the mind on mere matters of wonder or curiosity presents the true and far more extraordinary character of the scenery from being appreciated."

Notice how in this third selection, Olmsted appeals to values from the Declaration of Independence:

3…more important class of considerations, however, remains to be stated. These are considerations of a political duty of grave importance to which seldom if ever before has proper respect been paid by any government in the world but the grounds of which rest on the same eternal base of equity and benevolence with all other duties of republican government. It is the main duty of government, if it is not the sole duty of government, to provide means of protection for all its citizens in the pursuit of happiness against the obstacles, otherwise insurmountable, which the selfishness of individuals or combinations of individuals is liable to interpose to that pursuit.

In #4, we see the beginning of Olmsted’s argument about how the natural world makes us healthier. Note especially how he appeals to a desire to help develop mental or emotional well-being in the general American population (earlier, he emphasizes, and will so later, also, that this benefit should not be restricted to the wealthy who can afford the trip to Yosemite):

4.It is a scientific fact that the occasional contemplation of natural scenes of an impressive character, particularly if this contemplation occurs in connection with relief from ordinary cares, change of air and change of habits, is favorable to the health and vigor of men and especially to the health and vigor of their intellect beyond any other conditions which can be offered them, that it not only gives pleasure for the time being but increases the subsequent capacity for happiness and the means of securing happiness. The want of such occasional recreation where men and women are habitually pressed by their business or household cares often results in a class of disorders the characteristic quality of which is mental disability, sometimes taking the severe forms of softening of the brain, paralysis, palsy, monomania, or insanity, but more frequently of mental and nervous excitability, moroseness, melancholy or irascibility, incapacitating the subject for the proper exercise of the intellectual and moral forces.

5.It is well established that where circumstances favor the use of such means of recreation as have been indicated, the reverse of this is true. For instance, it is a universal custom with the heads of the important departments of the British government to spend a certain period of every year on their parks and shooting grounds or in travelling among the Alps or other mountain regions. This custom is followed by the leading lawyers, bankers, merchants and the wealthy classes generally of the empire, among whom the average period of active business life is much greater than with the most nearly corresponding classes in our own or any other country where the same practice is not equally well established.

6.That when it shall become more accessible the Yosemite will prove attraction of a similar character and a similar source of wealth to whole community, not only of California but of the United States, there can be no doubt. It is a significant fact that visitors have already come from Europe expressly to see it, and that a member of the Alpine Club of London having seen it in summer was not content with a single visit but returned again and spent several months in it during the inclement season of the year for the express purpose of enjoying its winter aspect. Other foreigners and visitors from the atantic states have done the same, while as yet no Californian has shown a similar interest in it.

7.But in this country at least it is not those who have the most important responsibilities in state affairs or in commerce, who suffer most from the lack of recreation; women suffer more than men, and the agricultural class is more largely represented in our insane asylums than the professional, and for this, and other reasons, it is these classes to which the opportunity for such recreation is the greatest blessing.

8.If we analyze the operation of scenes of beauty upon the mind, and consider the intimate relation of the mind upon the nervous system and the whole physical economy, the action and reaction which constantly occur between bodily and mental conditions, the reinvigoration which results from such scenes is readily comprehended. Few persons can see such scenery as that of the Yosemite and not be impressed by it in some slight degree. All not alike, all not perhaps consciously, and amongst all who are consciously impressed by it, few can give the least expression to that of which they are conscious. But there can be no doubt that all have this susceptibility, though with some it is much more dull and confused than with others.

Notice his class bias:

9.The power of scenery to affect men is, in a large way, proportionate to the degree of their civilization and the degree in which their taste has been cultivated. Among a thousand savages there will be a much smaller number who will show the least sign of being so affected than among a thousand persons taken from a civilized community. This is only one of the many channels in which a similar distinction between civilized and savage men is to be generally observed. The whole body of the susceptibilities of civilized men and with their susceptibilities their powers, are on the whole enlarged.

Here, he explains the connection between "exercising muscles" and "exercising the mind."

10.But as with the bodily powers, if one group of muscles is developed by exercise exclusively, and all others neglected, the result is general feebleness, so it is with the mental faculties. And men who exercise those faculties or susceptibilities of the mind which are called in play by beautiful scenery so little that they seem to be inert with them, are either in a diseased condition from excessive devotion of the mind to a limited range of interests, or their whole minds are in a savage state; that is, a state of low development. The latter class need to be drawn out generally; the former need relief from their habitual matters of interest and to be drawn out in those parts of their mental nature which have been habitually left idle and inert.

Don't worry!

11.But there is a special reason why the reinvigoration of those parts which are stirred into conscious activity by natural scenery is more effective upon the general development and health than that of any other, which is this: The severe and excessive exercise of the mind which leads to the greatest fatigue and is the most wearing upon the whole constitution is almost entirely caused by application to the removal of something to be apprehended in the future, or to interests beyond those of the moment, or of the individual; to the laying up of wealth, to the preparation of something, to accomplishing something in the mind of another, and especially to small and petty details which are uninteresting in themselves and which engage the attention at all only because of the bearing they have on some general end of more importance which is seen ahead.

Ah, but if you do worry, natural scenery will restore you:

12.In the interest which natural scenery inspires there is the strongest contrast to this. It is for itself and at the moment it is enjoyed. The attention is aroused and the mind occupied without purpose, without a continuation of the common process of relating the present action, thought or perception to some future end. There is little else that has this quality so purely. There are few enjoyments with which regard for something outside and beyond the enjoyment of the moment can ordinarily be so little mixed. The pleasures of the table are irresistibly associated with the care of hunger and the repair of the bodily waste. In all social pleasures and all pleasures which are usually enjoyed in association with the social pleasures, the care for the opinion of others, or the good of others largely mingles. In the pleasures of literature, the laying up of ideas and self-improvement are purposes which cannot be kept out of view.

In the following paragraph, we see what he has building to: an argument about how Yosemite—and protecting it—will "reinvigorate" the American people.

13.This, however, is in very slight degree, if at all, the case with the enjoyment of the emotions caused by natural scenery. It therefore results that the enjoyment of scenery employs the mind without fatigue and yet exercises it; tranquilizes it and yet enlivens it; and thus, through the influence of the mind over the body, gives the effect of refreshing rest and reinvigoration to the whole system.

In this following paragraph, he makes an important point about how we do not want Yosemite to be the playground for only the wealthy:

14.Men who are rich enough and who are sufficiently free from anxiety with regard to their wealth can and do provide places of this needed recreation for themselves. They have done so from the earliest periods known in the history of the world, for the great men of the Babylonians, the Persians and the Hebrews, had their rural retreats, as large and as luxurious as those of the aristocracy of Europe at present. There are in the islands of Great Britain and Ireland more than one thousand private parks and notable grounds devoted to luxury and recreation. The value of these grounds amounts to many millions of dollars and the cost of their annual maintenance is greater than that of the national schools; their only advantage to the commonwealth is obtained through the recreation they afford their owners (except as these extend hospitality to others) and these owners with their families number less than one in six thousand of the whole population. The enjoyment of the choicest natural scenes in the country and the means of recreation connected with them is thus a monopoly, in a very peculiar manner, of a very few, very rich people. The great mass of society, including those to whom it would be of the greatest benefit, is excluded from it. In the nature of the case private parks can never be used by the mass of the people in any country nor by any considerable number even of the rich, except by the favor of a few, and in dependence on them.

And here, he argues that in order for this to be the case—that the land be available to everyone—the government must be very involved in protecting this land:

15.Thus without means are taken by government to withhold them from the grasp of individuals, all places favorable in scenery to the recreation of the mind and body will be closed against the great body of the people. For the same reason that the water of rivers should be guarded against private appropriation and the use of it for the purpose of navigation and otherwise protected against obstruction, portions of natural scenery may therefore properly be guarded and cared for by government. To simply reserve them from monopoly by individuals, however, it will be obvious, is not all that is necessary. It is necessary that they should be laid open to the use of the body of the people.

DUTY!!

16.The establishment by government of great public grounds for the free enjoyment of the people under certain circumstances, is thus justified and enforced as a political duty.

Now, he wants to be sure that we understand how important it is to keep the land as it is:

17.The first point to be kept in mind then is the preservation and maintenance as exactly as is possible of the natural scenery; the restriction, that is to say, within the narrowest limits consistent with the necessary accommodations of visitors, of all artificial constructions and the prevention of all constructions markedly inharmonious with the scenery or which would unnecessarily obscure, distort or detract from the dignity of the scenery.

here, he gives an example of how plants have been destroyed in the eastern part of the nation, and furthermore, that already many trees have been destroyed in the Yosemite valley:

18.To illustrate these dangers, it may be stated that numbers of the native plants of large districts of the Atlantic states have almost wholly disappeared and that most of the common weeds of the farms are of foreign origin, having choked out the native vegetation. Many of the finer specimens of the most important trees in the scenery of the Yosemite have been already destroyed and the proclamation of the Governor, issued after the passage of the Act of Congress, forbidding the destruction of trees in the district, alone prevented the establishment of a saw mill within it. Notwithstanding the proclamation many fine trees have been felled and others girdled within a year. Indians and others have set fire to the forests and herbage and numbers of trees have been killed by these fires; the giant tree before referred to as probably the noblest tree now standing on the earth has been burned completely through the bark near the ground for a distance of more than one hundred feet of its circumference; not only have trees been cut, hacked, barked and fired in prominent positions, but rocks in the midst of the most picturesque natural scenery have been broken, painted and discolored by fires built against them. In travelling to the Yosemite and within a few miles of the nearest point at which it can be approached by a wheeled vehicle, the Commissioners saw other picturesque rocks stencilled over with advertisements of patent medicines and found the walls of the Bower Cave, one of the most beautiful natural objects in the state, already so much broken and scratched by thoughtless visitors that it is evident that unless the practice should be prevented not many years will pass before its natural charms will be quite destroyed.

Now, he must make an argument about why it is important to build a road through the Valley:

20.A man travelling from Stockton to the Yosemite or the Mariposa Grove is commonly three or four days on the road at an expense of from thirty to forty dollars, and arrives in the majority of cases quite overcome with the fatigue and unaccustomed hardships of the journey. Few persons, especially few women, are able to enjoy or profit by the scenery and air for days afterwards. Meantime they remain at an expense of from $3 to $12 per day for themselves, their guide and horses, and many leave before they have recovered from their first exhaustion and return home jaded and ill. The distance is not over one hundred miles, and with such roads and public conveyances as are found elsewhere in the state the trip might be made easily and comfortably in one day and at a cost of ten or twelve dollars. With similar facilities of transportation, the provisions and all the necessities of camping could also be supplied at moderate rates. To realize the advantages which are offered the people of the state in this gift of the nation, therefore, the first necessity is a road from the termination of the present roads leading towards the district. At present there is no communication with it except by means of a very poor trail for a distance of nearly forty miles from the Yosemite and twenty from the Mariposa Grove.

21.Besides the advantages which such a road would have in reducing the expense, time and fatigue of a visit to the tract, to the whole public at once, it would also serve the important purpose of making it practicable to convey timber and other articles necessary for the accommodation of visitors into the Yosemite from without, and thus the necessity, or the temptation, to cut down its groves and to prepare its surface for tillage would be avoided. Until a road is made it must be very difficult to prevent this.

22.The Commissioners propose also in laying out a road to the Mariposa Grove that it shall be carried completely around it, so as to offer a barrier of bare ground to the approach of fires, which nearly every year sweep upon it from the adjoining country, and which during the last year alone have caused injuries, exemption from which it will be thought before many years would have been cheaply obtained at ten times the cost of the road.

23.Within the Yosemite the Commissioners propose to cause to be constructed a double trail, which, on the completion of our approach road, may be easily made suitable for the passage of a single vehicle, and which shall enable visitors to make a complete circuit of all the broader parts of the valley and to cross the meadows at certain points, reaching all the finer points of view to which it can be carried without great expense. When carriages are introduced it is proposed that they shall be driven for the most part up one side and down the other of the valley, suitable resting places and turnouts for passing being provided at frequent intervals. The object of this arrangement is to reduce the necessity for artificial construction within the narrowest practicable limits, destroying as it must the natural conditions of the ground and presenting an unpleasant object to the eye in the midst of the scenery. The trail or narrow road could also be kept more in the shade, could take a more picturesque course, would be less dusty, and could be much more cheaply kept in repair. From this trail a few paths would also need to be formed, leading to points of view which would only be accessible to persons on foot. Several small bridges would also be required.

Here, he elaborates on the need for lodging:

24.The Commission also propose the construction of five cabins at points in the valley conveniently near to those most frequented by visitors, especially near the foot of the cascades, but at the same time near to convenient camping places. These cabins would be let to tenants with the conditions that they should have constantly open one comfortable room as a free resting place for visitors, with the proper private accommodations for women, and that they should keep constantly on hand in another room a supply of certain simple necessities for camping parties, including tents, cooking utensils and provisions; the tents and utensils to be let, and the provisions to be sold at rates to be limited by the terms of the contract.

Notice the amount of money that he is asking for here:

25.The Commissioners ask and recommend that sums be appropriated for these and other purposes named below as follows:

For the expense already incurred in the survey and transfer of the Yosemite and Mariposa Big Tree Grove from the United States to the State of California..........................$ 2,000

For the construction of 30 miles, more or less, of double trail and footpaths ...............3,000

For the construction of bridges. .............1,600

For the construction and finishing five cabins, closets, stairways, railings, etc. ...........2,000

Salary for Superintendent (2 years). ..........2,400

For surveys, advertising and incidentals. ....... 1,000

For aid in the construction of a road. ......... 25,000

Total. ......... $37,000

As reprinted in Landscape Architecture, 43, 1952, 12-25. Note: The description of Yosemite was taken from Olmsted's narrative in The Saturday Evening Post (June 18, 1868) and added to the handwritten transcript of his report from which the original description was missing.