Alliance Member’s New Publication on Managing Fire
Wildfires impact thousands of acres across the west annually.  The devastation is increasingly felt as we recognize the value of our heritage located in the path of these fires.  However, fire is a natural event.  As such wildfire is not necessarily a disaster.  When managing resources to protect cultural landscapes, it is critical to understand the effects of fire and act to reduce the potential damage before a fire begins.

Managing Fire in the Urban Wildland Interfaceby Fire Chief Kenneth S. Blonksi, Cheryl Miller and Carol Rice has recently become available from Solano Press.  This unique guide deepens understanding andoffers solutions and strategies for managing fire at the urban edge that can be applied to historic sites and cultural landscapes. 

Designed as a professional reference,this Solano Press book offers analytical tools and comprehensive summaries not found in other manuals dealing with fire mitigation. It provides information on codes and laws and includes case studies, tables, figures, suggested websites, and other source material.  Drawing primarily on best practices from California, the book’s lessons are applicable nationwide.

The book is divided into four parts, beginning with an overview of the threat and key elements of urban wildland fire.  Part two describes a range of threat assessment methods and illustrates the process of customizing solutions for local circumstances. 

Part three expands on practical solutions and best practices. Ten chapters focus on awareness and ignition prevention; policy planning and land use tools; community design solutions including structures, domestic landscape and wildland fuels; and emergency responses and residents response to fire.  Part four provides strategies for implementation and ways to overcome common challenges: vested interests, environmental challenges, biomass utilization or disposal, behavior change, and funding.

To view an excerpt from the book or to order a copy visit www.solano.com. 

Atlas of Historical County Boundaries now available online
The Newberry Library is pleased to announce the completion and release of its Digital Atlas of Historical County Boundaries, a dataset that covers every day-to-day change in the size, shape, location, name, organization, and attachment of each U.S. county and state from the creation of the first county in 1634 through 2000.

The project began in 1988, with principal funding by the National Endowment for the Humanities. Additional support came from the Newberry Library and from other foundations and individuals.  All files of the Digital Atlas of Historical County Boundaries are free for use under an Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.5 Creative Commons License.

Queries should be addressed to scholl@newberry.org. The Website for the Atlas is http://publications.newberry.org/ahcbp.

Library of American Landscape History
Check out "What's New" at the Library of American Landscape History, with information about books, projects and preservation stories.
http://www.lalh.org/new.html

Three Classic Titles Wrap Up Reprint Series
The three final titles in the ASLA Centennial Reprint Series—launched by LALH in 1999 to commemorate the founding of the American Society of Landscape Architects—will roll out in 2009.

Country Life: A Handbook of Agriculture, Horticulture, and Landscape Gardening (1866) by Robert Morris Copeland will carry a new introduction by William H. Tishler.  Like his better known colleagues Frederick Law Olmsted and Horace W. S. Cleveland, Copeland (1830-1874) merged principles of scientific farming with landscape gardening and helped lay the foundations for city planning and integrated park systems.  His magnum opus Country Life became a bible of scientific farming and landscape gardening.  In his introduction, Tishler, professor emeritus of landscape architecture at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and editor of Midwestern Landscape Architecture, analyzes the book’s importance to mid-nineteenth-century Americans.

Landscape for Living (1950) is a manifesto on modernism in landscape design by Garrett Eckbo (1910–1996).  During and after his experience as a graduate student at Harvard (1936–38), Eckbo railed against the Beaux-Arts system of landscape design, arguing for an approach that would address contemporary social and economic challenges.  This edition features a new introduction by David C. Streatfield, professor emeritus of landscape architecture at the University of Washington and author of California Gardens: Creating a New Eden.  Streatfield chronicles Eckbo’s life up to 1950, well into his early career as a landscape designer, author, and social activist.

The final reprint, The Art of Landscape Architecture (1915) by Samuel Parsons Jr., sums up the theories and built work that inspired America’s first generation of landscape architects.  A protégé of Calvert Vaux, Parsons (1844–1923) worked as superintendent of planting in Central Park and landscape architect to the City of New York for nearly thirty years, representing the city’s last direct link to the ideals of Vaux and Olmsted.  A new introduction by Francis R. Kowsky, professor emeritus of art history at Buffalo State College and author of Country, Park, and City: The Architecture and Life of Calvert Vaux, explores Parsons’s contributions to his nascent profession.

Forthcoming: Biography of Acadia National Park’s Founder
A biography of conservationist George B. Dorr (1853–1944) by Ronald H. Epp will illuminate the life of the conservationist and founder of Acadia National Park.  The book will explore Dorr’s connections with the powerful institutions, private philanthropists, and policy makers of his day and how they shaped his conservation principles and leadership skills.  Abundant images will include landscape photographs by Dorr and renowned photographer Herbert Wendell Gleason. 

Until his recent retirement, Epp taught philosophy at Southern New Hampshire University, where he also served as director of the university library.  He was a consultant on the forthcoming PBS series Our National Parks by Ken Burns.

New Preservation Journal Published
The first issue of Preservation Education & Research (PER), established by the National Council for Preservation Education (NCPE), has just been published.  Edited by Anat Geva and Nancy Volkman of Texas A&M University, Volume 1 contains six peer-reviewed articles and three book reviews.

The journal received support from both NCPE and The Clarence S. Stein Institute for Urban and Landscape Studies. Member schools of NCPE automatically receive five copies.  If you should want to order an individual copy contact the editors at perjournal@gmail.com.

News from the Library of American Landscape History

Index for Pioneers of American Landscape Design Available Online
Readers who own a copy of Pioneers of American Landscape Design can now download the index to this book, which the Library of American Landscape History (LALH) commissioned to augment the book’s usefulness as a research tool. Visit lalh.org/books.html and click on the Pioneers jacket.

A Genius for Place Caps Banner Year for LALH
Robin Karson’s long-awaited book, A Genius for Place: American Landscapes of the Country Place Era, is slated for publication in early December by the University of Massachusetts Press. A Genius for Place will be the fifth title released by LALH in 2007, capping the organization’s fifteenth anniversary year.

In this beautifully illustrated volume, Karson traces the development of a distinctly American style of landscape design through an analysis of seven country places created by some of the nation's most talented landscape practitioners––from the naturalistic wild gardens of Warren Manning to the mysterious “Prairie style” landscapes of Jens Jensen to the proto-modernist gardens of Fletcher Steele. Analyzing these designs in context with one another and against the backdrop of the professional and cultural currents that shaped larger projects—such as parks, campuses, and planned communities—Karson creates a rich and comprehensive picture of the artistic achievements of the period. Handsome black-and-white images by landscape photographer Carol Betsch illuminate the transporting spirit of these country places today, while hundreds of drawings, plans, and historical photographs bring the past to life.

2007 VIEW Available Online
Download the annual LALH magazine at www.lalh.org/view.html.

Olmsted Site Book Published
Please note that the book, The Olmsted National Historic Site and the Growth of Historic Landscape Preservation, which was mentioned in our summer newsletter and written by David Grayson Allen has been published.

LALH and its publishing partner, University of Massachusetts Press, are finishing production on two books coming out this fall: Silent City on a Hill: Picturesque Landscapes of Memory and Boston’s Mount Auburn Cemetery by Blanche M. G. Linden and Book of Landscape Gardening (1926 edition) by Frank A. Waugh (1869–1943).

Silent City is the long-awaited, expanded edition of the author’s classic work on America’s first rural cemetery, with a new introduction by William C. Clendaniel, new color photographs by Richard Cheek, and new black-and-white photographs by Carol Betsch.

Waugh’s book, part of the ASLA Centennial Reprint Series, brings back into print the ideas and principles promulgated by this early advocate of landscape design and conservation, who also was a serious photographer, accomplished flutist, and, later in life, a master printmaker.  In 1902 Waugh established and headed the Department of Landscape Gardening at Massachusetts Agricultural College, now the University of Massachusetts Amherst, just two years after Harvard launched the country’s first such program.  Linda Flint McClelland, a historian for the National Park Service, has written the new introduction.

The Book of Landscape Gardening, one of more than twenty books Waugh wrote on a wide variety of subjects, was issued in three editions over twenty-seven years.  The third and most popular 1926 edition, revised to be "suitable for a homeowner’s fireside reading,” as McClelland observes, attracted new readers among new suburban homeowners in the decade following World War I and featured new photographs, many of which Waugh took.  The changes in this final edition reflect, in McClelland’s view, “Waugh’s strong belief that ‘the fundamental principles on which landscape architecture rests do not change’ and the power to improve the American landscape and to preserve what is already beautiful must be given to ordinary people."