1860- Manning, Warrentt 1938. Library of American Landscape History Page 1 of 3 Biographical Sketch WARREN HENRY MANNING (1860-1938) Landscape architect, horticulturist, planner, author Photograph courtesy Manning Family Association. Warren Manning was born in Reading, Massachusetts, the son of Jacob Warren Manning, a nurseryman, and Lydia Manning, a watercolorist. He later credited his mother with instilling in him a lifelong devotion to "making America a finer place in which to live." Manning's father, who began a thriving nursery business in 1854, helped nurture the horticultural basis for his son's distinguished career. Young Warren often traveled with his father to collect plants, to botanize, and to see other nursery operations, including that of Charles Downing, brother of Andrew Jackson Downing. By 1884, Manning had apparently developed an interest in design, for a nursery pamphlet from that year advertises that he had become available to "make sketches and lay out grounds." In 1888, Manning left his father's business, having secured work in the office of Frederick Law Olmsted Sr. For the next eight years, Manning specialized in horticulture and planting design under Olmsted, gaining invaluable experience and training through contact with other talented landscape architects, primarily John Charles Olmsted and Charles Eliot. He eventually supervised about one hundred projects there. With the Olmsted firm, Manning got his first experience with planned industrial communities, a type of work in which he later specialized and a field in which he made significant contributions. He also acquired considerable experience with planting design, particularly at Biltmore, the 125,000-acre estate of George Vanderbilt, in Asheville, North Carolina. In 1893, Manning supervised the final installation of planting at the Chicago World's Columbian Exposition. During the period, he also worked on dozens of park projects in Milwaukee, Buffalo, Rochester, Chicago, Trenton, Washington, D.C., and elsewhere. Perhaps most important to Manning's later career was his exposure to the ideas of Charles Eliot, a partner in the Olmsted firm, who was working on the Boston Metropolitan Park System during Manning's tenure. Manning prepared sketch maps of the area's vegetation which were then overlaid with sheets detailing road layout, topography, and water features. This methodology directly influenced the development of Manning's own version of resource-based planning. Manning, no doubt, was also aware of the political side of Eliot's regional planning efforts, which had resulted in unprecedented gains in public land for Boston and a remarkable new organization, The Trustees of Reservations. In 1896, when it became apparent that the Olmsted mantle would pass to Eliot and both Olmsted sons before it came to him, Manning decided to open his own office. One of his first projects was a report on the flora of the Boston Metropolitan Park System, produced as a consultant to the Olmsted firm. Within the year, Manning wrote to Eliot to ask his help in founding a new professional organization for landscape architects. Eliot was more interested in establishing a public organization. The American Park and Outdoor Art Association, later the American Civic Association-supported through the efforts of Manning, J. Horace McFarland, and others-was the result. Manning continued to advocate a professional organization, and with Samuel Parsons Jr., convinced the younger Olmsteds http://www.lalh.org/manningBioMain.html 3/24/2008 Library of American Landscape History Page 2 of 3 to endorse the idea. In 1899, eleven charter members of the American Society of Landscape Architects, including Manning, met for the first time in New York City. (Manning served as president of the organization in 1914.) Between 1901 and 1904, Manning's brother, J. Woodward, joined him as a partner. One of their major projects was the design and planning of a park system for Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, where they worked in close collaboration with engineers in laying out new drainage and sanitation systems. Beautiful, usable open spaces resulted from the carefully coordinated efforts, as they had from Olmsted's treatment of the Charles and Muddy rivers in Boston. The project earned Manning's firm national attention and cemented a decades-long relationship with the city. Some of the clients Manning found during his early years in practice would prove similarly enduring. James Tufts retained him for several jobs, including Pinehurst, a resort in North Carolina. (Manning also worked for several other members of the Tufts family.) In 1896, Manning began working for William G. Mather. Over three decades, he eventually designed 60 separate projects for Mather, among them Gwinn, Mather's Cleveland home, where he collaborated with Charles Platt on the estate grounds and laid out a 21-acre wild garden. Manning also designed several mining towns in Michigan's Upper Peninsula for Mather, including the town of Gwinn, the first planned community on the Marquette Iron Range. Here Manning undertook an extensive site inventory to help determine the layout of community facilities, open space improvements, and worker housing. He prided himself on the variety and artistic quality of the fourteen different cottage styles he designed for the town. In 1915, Manning moved his practice to Billerica, near his ancestral home, and began to enlarge his staff. His roster of employees reveals many talented practitioners, including A. D. Taylor, Fletcher Steele, Wilbur D. Cook Jr., Marjorie Sewell Cautley, Helen Bullard, Stephen Hamblin, Charles Gillette, and Dan Kiley. A large proportion of his assistants were women, which was unusual for the time. Manning also undertook large regional mapping projects, one of which was done in support of the National Park Service Bill, 1915-1916. In time, Manning combined the regional data into a "National Plan." This 927-page document synthesized information about many kinds of resources-forests, animals, waterways, minerals, climate, railroads, highway systems, etc.-and made recommendations for their use and protection. A condensed version of the plan was published as a supplement to Landscape Architecture Quarterly in 1923. Despite the appalling racist views it expresses, the document is valuable for Manning's conception of a land classification methodology based on natural resources and systems, and the use of this methodology to attempt to control the exploitation of resources and to preserve scenic beauty. Manning's principles of resource-based planning also informed his town planning. His plan for Birmingham, Alabama (1919), recommended a scheme of multiple neighborhood- based centers determined by available resources. The approach was revolutionary and conceived in direct opposition to the prevailing City Beautiful movement, which featured monumental civic centers and Beaux Arts public buildings. Manning's seemingly inexhaustible energy took him to nearly every state in the nation, where he undertook almost every type of job. In general, his planting and planning skills outstripped his design ability. Manning's most successful private estates were often the product of collaborations with talented architects. Other important residential projects include estates for Gustave Pabst (Milwaukee), August and Adolphus Busch (St. Louis), Cyrus and Harriet McCormick (Lake Forest, Ill.), J. J. Borland (Camden, Me.), and Clement Griscom (Haverford, Pa.). Manning designed parks or park systems in Milwaukee; Minneapolis; St. Paul; Providence; Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania; Louisville; Cincinnati; and many other cities. He also worked on college campuses, subdivisions, golf courses, institutional grounds, and projects for government and community groups. Manning was an active advocate for community participation in many of the public design projects. His client list chronicles over 1,700 jobs. http://www.lalh.org/manningBioMain.html 3/24/2008 Library of American Landscape History Page 3 of 3 Manning was also a passionate writer. His many articles covered a wide range of topics of interest to the profession and the general public. Liberty Hyde Bailey invited him to prepare several entries for Cyclopedia of Horticulture, including that on landscape gardening. Invariably, Manning's underlying themes echoed those of his mentor, Olmsted Sr., centering on how to improve the quality of life as civilization presented ever more problematic obstacles to healthful living and scenic enjoyment. These articles were charged with an almost Transcendentalist reverence for the wonders of nature. Manning's practice dwindled during the Depression years, and by the mid-1930s he had almost no work at all. He died from a heart attack in 1938 at the age of seventy-eight. Karson, Robin. The Muses of Gwinn: Art and Nature in a Garden Designed by Warren H. Manning, Charles Platt, and Ellen Biddle Shipman New York: Sagapress/Abrams, 1995. A detailed narrative about one of Manning's major residential projects in Cleveland; heavily illustrated. Manning, Warren H. "A National Plan Study Brief." Landscape Architecture Quarterly 8 (July 1923). A 23- page brief presenting Manning's statistical analysis of the country's resources. Neckar, Lance. "Developing Landscape Architecture for the Twentieth Century: The Career of Warren H. Manning." Landscape Journal 8 (Fall 1989), 78-91. Comprehensive and detailed overview of Manning's long career. There are two major repositories for papers relating to Warren Manning. The first is the Warren H. Manning Collection, Parks Library, Iowa State University, Ames; it consists primarily of plans, drawings, and photographs and is indexed. The second is the Warren H. Manning Collection at the University of Massachusetts, Lowell; these papers include some correspondence and photographs, copies of some office records, Manning's unpublished autobiography, and various ephemera. Plans, photographs, and correspondence relating to Stan Hywet are at Stan Hywet Hall, Akron, Ohio; and plans, photographs, and correspondence relating to Gwinn are in the Gwinn archive, Cleveland. - Robin Karson Pioneers of American Landscape Design. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2000. http://www.lalh.org/manningBioMain.html 3/24/2008 e-Library@Iowa State University Page 1 of 1 IOWA STATE UNIVERSITY e-Library Text Version Library Catalog Find articles Library Information How do I..? Ask a Librarian Library Search Tags Help Books, DVDs, etc. Articles Combined Search for Hello, Guest What am I searching? Sign in (optional) to have full access and to warren h. manning GO keep things. Why sign in? To enter Look for my query: All items as author/creator my workspace My Preferences Advanced Search Details Back to result list Papers, 1900-1930. Keeping this Author: Warren H. Manning (Warren Henry), 1860-1938. ; item Subjects: Manning, Warren H. (Warren Henry), 1860-1938 ; Landscape architects -- United States ; Description: Collection includes documents relating to the National Plan, over 1600 drawings done 1900-1920, and E-mail Manning's reference file of articles, lantern slides, and photographs arranged by topic. Materials pertaining to national conferences and committees Manning was involved with and some correspondence are included. Articles written by T.H. Abel, A.P. Davis, Egbert Hans, and William E. Smythe in support of the Plan are also present in the Print collection. Creation Date: 1900 Push to Format: 143 linear ft.; 77 manuscript boxes.; App. 1600 items in oversized drawers/ tubes. Language: English This item in the Library Catalog Finding aid available at: What is tagging This item in WorldCat® Tagging Add to e-Shelf Available in your library (Getit) Ignore my query and look for everything tagged: Availability and location: My tags for this item: Available: Parks Library Special Collections (MS-218) Sign in to see your tags and Reviews: add new ones Sign in to write a review Everybody's Cloud List tags for this item: Tags page Previous Result 3 Next Haven't Found What You're Looking For? Similar Items May we suggest: All items by this creator: > Warren H. Manning See similar items (by the same author, on the same subject, in other editions, in other formats, or in other (Warren Henry), 1860- languages) 1938. Make sure your query is spelled correctly All items on this subject: Change your query words or your selections in the Look for boxes > Manning, Warren H. (Warren Henry), 1860- 1938 > Landscape architects - United States Send questions or comments about this page Last modified: Monday, 03-Mar-2008 13:52:50 CST Copyright © 2000-2008, lowa State University. All rights reserved. http://primofe-1.lib.iastate.edu:1701/primo_library/libweb/action/display.do;jsessionid=DF.. 3/25/2008 MS 218 3 Biographical note The career of the landscape architect Warren H. Manning (1860-1938) looms large in the period between the era of Frederick Law Olmsted and the mid-twentieth century. Manning exercised a pivotal role in the development of American landscape architecture. Warren Manning was trained by one of the leading nineteenth-century New England practitioners of landscape horticulture--his father, Jacob Warren Manning (1826-1904)-- and by the foremost landscape architect of the era, the "father" of the profession in America in popular perception, Frederick Law Olmsted, Sr. (1822-1903). Manning joined the firm of Frederick Law Olmsted in Brookline, Massachusetts, as planting supervisor in 1888. Because of his superior horticultural knowledge, Manning assumed an ever-widening role in the firm's work. In his eight-year tenure with Olmsted, Manning worked on 125 projects in 22 states, including the World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago in 1893, and municipal park work in Boston, Buffalo, Chicago, Trenton, Rochester, and Washington, D.C. In 1896 Manning began his own practice as an independent landscape designer. Manning's office (at various times in Boston, Billerica, and Cambridge, Massachusetts) provided an apprenticeship setting for a group of men and women who charted significant directions for twentieth-century landscape planning and design. They included Albert D. Taylor, Fletcher Steele, Wilbur D. Cook Jr., Marjorie Sewell Cautley, and Helen Bullard, among others. Manning was a pioneer in two principal areas: resource-based design and planning, and community-based participatory design. He was a founder of the American Society of Landscape Architects, which first met in New York in 1899 with 11 charter members. Manning was a very important national publicist for landscape architecture and town planning. His client list included not only the captains of industry of his age--including James Tufts, Cyrus H. McCormick, William G. Mather, Frederick Pabst, August and Adolphus Busch, Frank Seiberling, and Joseph Pulitzer--bu also many government agencies and community groups. Manning developed an environmental planning model based on the concept of gathering and organizing discrete types of environmental data, such as soils and vegetative cover, in mapped form, using gridded maps in particular. Similar mapping and overlay analysis is quite common today. What began as regional mapping evolved into what Manning termed the National Plan, a document representing an early attempt to provide a statistical profile of the entire country. The principal contribution of Manning's National Plan (1919) was the concept of a land classification system that could be used by governmental units to control the exploitation of natural resources and to evaluate scenic beauty. Manning's national planning work was undertaken on his SPECIAL COLLECTIONS DEPARTMENT IOWA STATE UNIVERSITY MS 218 4 own initiative. It was an inspiration for the more structured efforts of the National Resources Planning Board during the Roosevelt administrations. Collection description The collection (1882-2007, n.d.) contains material related to Manning's work on the National Plan, speeches, articles, reports, client lists, drawings and plans from more than fifty of Manning's projects, glass lantern slides, and photographs. Organization The collection is organized into the following series: Series 1, Personal Papers, 1900-1985, n.d. Series 2, Drawings, 1891-1929, n.d. Series 3, Lantern Slides, ca. 1900-1930, n.d. Series 4, Lantern Slide Photographic Prints, ca. 1900-1930, n.d. Series 5, Photographs and Clippings, 1883-1927, n.d. Series 6, Printed Materials, 1882-2007, n.d. SPECIAL COLLECTIONS DEPARTMENT IOWA STATE UNIVERSITY FirstSearch: WorldCat Detailed Record Page 1 of 2 OC LC FirstSearch COLGATE UNIV WorldCat Detailed Record Click on a checkbox to mark a record to be e-mailed or printed in Marked Records. Staff View My Account Options Comments Home Databases Searching Results Exit Hide tips List of Records Detailed Record Marked Records Saved Records Go to page TYT WorldCat results for: ti: warren and ti: h. and WorldCat ti: manning. Record 1 of 19. Subjects Libraries E-mail Print Export Help 1 Mark: Prev Next Detailed Add/View Record Comments The muses of Gwinn : art and nature in a garden designed by Warren H. Manning, Charles A. Platt & Ellen Biddle Shipman / Robin S Karson; William Gwinn Mather 1995 English Book X, 204 p. : ill. ; 27 cm. Sagaponack, N.Y. : Sagapress, ; ISBN: 0898310342 (hardcover) GET THIS ITEM Availability: Check the catalogs in your library. Libraries worldwide that own item: 179 IIII Search the catalog at Colgate University Libraries External Resources: MY Loan FIND RELATED More Like This: Search for versions with same title and author Advanced options Find Items About: Mather, William Gwinn, (max: 8); Library of American Landscape History (2) Title: The muses of Gwinn : art and nature in a garden designed by Warren H. Manning, Charles A. Platt & Ellen Biddle Shipman / Author(s): Karson, Robin S. Mather, William Gwinn, 1857-1951. Corp Author(s): Library of American Landscape History. Publication: Sagaponack, N.Y. : Sagapress, Year: 1995 Description: X, 204 p. : ill. ; 27 cm. Language: English Contents: Introduction to Gwinn -- Formal and informal design in the country place era -- Charles A. Platt, Warren H. Manning, Ellen Biddle Shipman -- William Gwinn http://0-firstsearch.oclc.org.library.colgate.edu/WebZ/FSFETCH?fetchtype=fullrecord:sessi... 3/2/2007 FirstSearch: WorldCat Detailed Record Page 2 of 2 Mather -- Locating a site -- Designing the house -- Designing the garden -- Refinements -- Taming the wild garden -- The fountains of Gwinn -- The big wild garden -- The middle years -- The depression years -- Renewal. Standard No: ISBN: 0898310342 (hardcover) LCCN: 95-8157 SUBJECT(S) Named Person: Mather, William Gwinn, 1851-1951 -- Homes and haunts -- Ohio. Manning, Warren H. (Warren Henry), 1860-1938. Platt, Charles A. (Charles Adams), 1861-1933. Shipman, Ellen. Geographic: Gwinn Estate Gardens (Cleveland, Ohio) Note(s): "In association with the Library of American Landscape History."/ Includes bibliographical references (p. 187-198) and index. Class Descriptors: LC: SB466.U7; Dewey: 712/.6/0977132; 712/.6/097732 Responsibility: Robin Karson. Vendor Info: Baker & Taylor Baker & Taylor Baker and Taylor YBP Library Services (BKTY BKTY BTCP YANK) 39.95 39.95 Status: active active Material Type: Biography (bio) Document Type: Book Entry: 19950228 Update: 20061206 Accession No: OCLC: 32200102 Database: WorldCat WorldCat results for: ti: warren and ti: h. and 5 WorldCat ti: manning. Record 1 of 19. Subjects Libraries E-mail Print Export Help English Español Français Options Comments Exit OC © 1992-2007 OCLC LC Terms & Conditions http://0-firstsearch.oclc.org.library.colgate.edu/WebZ/FSFETCH?fetchtype=fullrecord:sessi. 3/2/2007