Introduction
“Nature can be so soothing to the tormented mind.”
Alexander von Humboldt (1851)
During the early planning for San Diego’s City Park later known as Balboa Park, landscape designers embraced a vision of pastoral nature in the park. Pioneering landscape architects such as Frederick Law Olmsted and Samuel Parsons Jr. valued creating picturesque parks for people to enjoy secluded nature away from the city. As cities became more populated, landscape architects began to embrace urbanization in parks with the City Beautiful movement ideas of connecting the city to the park and nature in the city. The pastoral picturesque and urbanized City Beautiful movements are represented among current historiography, including what has been written about Balboa Park history, as the two big ideas that have influenced the way parks have been designed by landscape architects. This thesis and digital project further the discussion by uncovering other ideas about nature practiced by individuals who designed San Diego’s City Park during the early twentieth century.
Digital archival capabilities with access to various platforms have allowed historians to reach people in the public outside of academia. In their book Digital History: A Guide to Gathering, Preserving, and Presenting the Past on the Web, historians Daniel J. Cohen and Roy Rosenzweig explore various ways of preserving the past digitally, while pointing out obstacles such as false narratives and copyright issues. According to Coehn and Rosenzweig, “the ubiquity of digital media in our lives — a pervasiveness that will only grow in the coming years — makes this message all the more important.” [1] With digitalization ever increasing, historians practice new archival methods by creating websites and digital projects that have the capability of connecting to greater audiences. While this thesis is connected with presenting ideas about nature on a digital platform, the hope is to inspire people through learning about the history of landscape design in the park, to go out and connect with nature in Balboa Park.
- Cohen J. Daniel, and Roy Rosenzweig. Digital History: A Guide to Gathering, Preserving, and Presenting the Past on the Web. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2006.