Good for Whom? Olmsted, Parks, and Public Good
Adding Contexts of Settler Colonialism and Systemic Racism
Purpose
The purpose of this informal digital companion is to provide counterhegemonic context to the exhibit "Frederick Law Olmsted: Landscapes for the Public Good." The exhibit is located in the Gordon Library's Multimedia Lab. This guide examines the roles of systemic racism and settler-colonialism in the creation of parks through land dispossession and forced removal of Black, Indigenous, and immigrant communities with special attention to Central Park and Yosemite National Park. These resources are just a small snapshot of these contexts, and we encourage you to pursue your own research. Each section offers Critical Inquiry prompts, and below you'll see guiding questions to keep in mind as you navigate both the Olmsted 200 and the Good for Whom? exhibits.
Guiding Questions:
Whose perspectives are missing from the Olmsted bicentennial narrative?
How can a critical approach to authority of research sources inform present and future relationships to land, place, and design?
How can digital humanities and scholarship enable further inquiry and understanding of colonization and anti-Blackness, past and present?
Continue the Conversation
Connect with the Gordon Library at www.wpi.edu/library.
If questions about digital scholarship, curation, social justice and sustainability align with your research interests, we'd love to connect. Email us at gr-dswp@wpi.edu.