Harlan Kelsey

Cover of the catalog of the Kelsey Highlangs Nursery Fall 1895 - Spring 1896

1905 Master Plan for Columbia, South Carolina , drawn by Harlan P. Kelsey

Harlan Page Kelsey (born July 9, 1872 in Kansas ; † July 28, 1958 ) was an early American landscape architect , he is considered a co-founder of modern urban planning .

Life

Harlan P. Kelsey became interested in plants at an early age and reportedly sold flowers by the age of twelve. He was particularly interested in the native bushes and trees of the Appalachians . He founded the Kelsey-Highlands Nursery in Boxford, Massachusetts .

During the 1870s, he tried to cultivate previously uncultivated plant species. For the first time it was possible to cultivate the rhododendrons Rhododendron vaseyi and Rhododendron carolinianum . The rare Lilium grayi and named after him Robinienart Robinia kelseyi were first cultivated by Kelsey.

After the turn of the century he turned to urban planning . His plans for Columbia (South Carolina) in 1905 and Greenville (South Carolina) in 1906 are famous . He felt he belonged to the school of the City Beautiful Movement and made sure that the city adapts to the landscape, and trees were his especially important and he created more parks. He advocated segregation within urban planning.

In 1907 he set up a planning committee for the first time during a construction project in Hartford, Connecticut , which later became the standard for all urban planning measures.

Kelsey was president of the Appalachian Mountain Club from 1905 to 1906 and co-author of Standardized Plant Names in 1942.

literature

• Richard Peregrine White: A century of service: a history of the nursery industry associations of the United States, American Association of Nurserymen Inc., Washington, DC, 1975, p. 402.
• Jon A. Peterson: The Birth of City Planning in the United States. 1840-1917 . Johns Hopkins University Press , Baltimore 2003, ISBN 978-0-8018-7210-5 , pp. 200-202 ( google books ).

Web links

• Harlan P. Kelsey. In: Biographies of American Seedsmen and Nurserymen. Smithsonian Institution Libraries, accessed December 21, 2001 . 
• Welcome to the Forest Hills Historic District. (PDF; 5.9 MB) In: Presentation funded by a CANDO 2006 grant from the City of Columbia Community Development Department. March 26, 2007, accessed December 21, 2001 .