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Olmsted's Southern Landscapes

In February of that year, he agreed to edit his three earlier volumes, “A Journey in the Seaboard States” (1856), “A Journey Through Texas” (1857) and “A Journey in the Back Country” (1860) and reissue them as a two-volume work titled “The Cotton Kingdom: A Traveller’s Observations on Cotton and Slavery in the American Slaves States.”

The idea came from his London publisher, who assumed that the secession crisis would create great interest in such a work in England; Olmsted’s New York publisher quickly agreed. There was reason to believe they were right: one influential journalist and admirer later concluded that Olmsted’s writing “was more powerful and convincing than ‘Uncle Tom’s Cabin.’” While that overstates the case, the book drew a wide readership keen to learn about the nature of Southern society. Born in Hartford, Conn., in 1822, Olmsted traveled widely from an early age. Educated at numerous locales, he led what he described as a “decently restrained vagabond life” that included, in 1843, shipping off to China. He ultimately found himself sitting in on classes at Yale, where his brother was a student. Olmsted became a surveyor and farmer on Staten Island. In 1850 he took a walking tour of the English countryside along with his brother John and best friend Charles Loring Brace, who would establish the Children’s Aid Society in New York. On his return, Olmsted published “Walks and Talks of an American Farmer in England” (1852).

In the aftermath of the compromise of 1850, Olmsted and Brace argued over slavery and the nature of the Southern economy. Brace suggested to Henry J. Raymond, editor of the New-York Daily Times (“Daily” disappeared from the title in 1857; the hyphen in 1896), that he send Olmsted south as a special correspondent to report his observations.

Olmsted left in December 1852 and returned three months later. His dispatches appeared under the pseudonym “Yeoman” and ran until 1854. He revised them for his first book. From November 1853 through May 1854, Olmsted traveled again, this time with his brother, mainly to New Orleans and on to Texas, and again his reports, called “Letters from the Southwest,” appeared in the newspaper and were revised for his second book. Finally, from May to August 1854, Olmsted traveled alone through the heart of the deep south. Articles from this journey, titled “The Southerners at Home,” appeared in 1857 in the competing New York Tribune, but his third book he wrote from scratch.

What to do in Kerrville Texas | Texas For Sale

Live Water available with the Guadalupe River and many of its smaller tributary creeks and streams. These creeks and rivers also offer opportunities for kayaking, canoeing, skiing, and fishing.

*Camps-Camping- RV’s: Whether it is RV style camping or more primitive tent camping, Kerrville has you covered. There are numerous camp grounds locally ranging from City and State parks to Kerrville KOA to Guadalupe River RV Resort(voted best RV Park in Texas in 2010). The Hill Country is also loaded with many summer boys and girls camps. Some of these camps have been running for generations and attract children from all over the world.

*Take a Drive: You can drive around the country side and enjoy all the scenery and landscape of the Saturday of the month. If you are looking for more shopping, we are less than an hour from San Antonio and all the shops it has to offer.

*Arts & Entertainment: Performing Arts available at Playhouse 2000 at the Cailloux Theater and Hill Country Arts Foundation at the Point Theater. Museum of Western Art displays the work of many popular Cowboy and Western Artists. Every weekend of the summer you can enjoy a good rodeo and dance at Crider’s(one of the oldest rodeo and dance in Texas). Kerrville is also home to the Kerrville Folk Festival and Texas State Arts & Crafts Fair; both held in May of each year.

I am sure when your visit is over, you will already be thinking of when you will be able to come back….if this is not the case then I guess you decided not to leave, so give me a call to start viewing <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <strike> <strong> <font color="" face="" size=""> <span style="">   2011 Texas Wildfires- Big 3   To date over 1,000,000 acres have burned and over 200 homes have been destroyed due to dozens of Wildfires throughout the State of Texas. The 3 major wildfires still burning in Texas are Possum Kingdom, Wildcat, and Rockhouse Fires.

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