Primary Sources:
Newspapers: Buffalo Board of Park Commisioners: Olmsted Plans: Photographs: Stereo photographs, a drawing room staple of refined Victorian homes, provide even more photographic documentation of the time, and the Olmsted parks of Buffalo are very well represented. Again, the Buffalo and Erie County Public Library and the Buffalo and Erie County Historical Society possess quantities of stereoviews, although they are not particularly well indexed nor documented. The stereoview illustrations on this site are primarily from the author's personal collection.
Miscellaneous: Secondary Sources:
See: Suggestions
for Additional Reading
Image Preparation:
Most of the historic images and plans appearing on this site were scanned and processed using one or more software applications and are believed to be in the public domain. Unless otherwise cited, all contemporary photographs are the copyrighted works of this author.
Copyright 1999 - 2007, Stanton M. Broderick
The best collection of Buffalo newspapers is that of the
Buffalo and Erie County Public Library.
The Buffalo and Erie County
Historical Society and the Butler Library of the State University of New York
College at Buffalo also have sizable collections of Buffalo newspapers on
microfilm, though dwarfed by the BECPL collections. However, their collections
are have seen less wear and tear, and the film copies are in better condition
than those of BECPL.
Unfortunately, when the Buffalo newspaper holdings were
filmed, no steps were taken to separate and preserve the illustrated rotograveur
sections published weekly in the late 19th and early 20th century by several of
the newspapers, even though those sections were printed on higher quality paper
than the high acid newsprint of the general newspapers. Unfortunately, the often
rich detail of the photographs printed in the supplements was largely lost
during the filming process.
The Buffalo and
Erie County Public Library has a complete run of Garden and Forest.
The Buffalo and Erie County Public
Library has a complete set of the published Annual Reports of the Buffalo Board
of Parks Commissioners, as does the Buffalo and Erie County Historical Society.
The Buffalo and Eire County Historical Society has in its collection a
series of printed Minutes of the Buffalo Board of Parks Commissioners.
The Buffalo and Erie County Historical Society has on
permanent loan from the City of Buffalo a number of original Olmsted plans for
the city parks, some of which include marginalia and annotations documenting
alterations to the plans, both contemporary to their construction and subsequent
to later modifications. Included are plans for a number of park structures, as well.
The Frederick Law Olmsted Historic Site at
Brookline, Massachusetts, operated by the National Park Service, has a large
collection of original prints of Olmsted designs for the Buffalo Parks.
The Buffalo and Erie County Historical Society possesses the
largest collection of photographs relating to the Buffalo parks and the
individuals who played key roles in their design and construction. The Nagle
collection is one significant body of material in their collections, and the
parks are well represented.
The Buffalo and Erie County Public Library
possesses a collection of illustrated annual photographic retrospectives for the
period around 1900.
The Library of Congress.
Picture postcards, which
were a craze in the 1906-1917 period and after, offer a rich amount of
photographic documentation of their era, including the parks of Buffalo. Public
collections of antique postcards are very limited; both the Buffalo and Erie
County Public Library and the Buffalo and Erie County Historical Society possess
some, but in very limited quantities and with little docuementation. The postcards which illustrate this site are primarily from the personal collection of the author.
The Buffalo and Erie County Historical Society has in its
collection broadsides of three of William McMillan's lectures. It also possesses surveyor's field notebooks for The Park (Delaware Park).