Lunch & Learn: Olmsted and the Museum Gardens

Online and in-person options This presentation will explore the relationship between the Hornblower family and the Olmsted Brothers landscape architecture firm in shaping the Museum property in the 20th century. As an open-air living history museum, Plimoth Patuxet Museums heavily relies on the 130-acre campus landscape along the Eel River in Plymouth to execute its mission of educating visitors about 17th century New England life centered around encounters between the Pilgrims arriving initially on the Mayflower, and Indigenous Wampanoag people who called the land ?Patuxet.? The Museum landscape is celebrated for its rich archeological layer documenting Wampanoag activity for thousands of years, as well as for the storied, extensively researched exhibits that serve its mission. However, a lesser-known ?layer? and story is the work of the Olmsted Brothers landscape architecture firm, the successor firm of renowned landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted (April 26, 1822 ? August 28, 1903). The firm shaped the property as a Country Place Era estate for Henry and Hattie Hornblower beginning in 1919, and then consulted for Henry Hornblower II as the landscape transformed into a museum beginning in 1947. As 2022 marks the 200th anniversary of the birth of Frederick Law Olmsted, social reformer and founder of American landscape architecture, this event will highlight the Olmstedian impacts on the landscape through the sharing of historical imagery, plans, and documentation, current conditions, as well as steps for preservation.