FREDERICK LAW OLMSTED: DESIGNING AMERICA tells the story of the man who made public parks an essential part of American life. Known as the father of American landscape architecture, Frederick Law Olmsted was co-designer of Central Park, head of the first Yosemite commission, leader of the campaign to protect Niagara Falls, designer of the U.S. Capitol Grounds, site planner for the Great White City of the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition, planner of Boston's "Emerald Necklace" of green space, as well as designer of park systems in many other cities. To Olmsted, a park was both a work of art and a necessity for urban life. His efforts to preserve nature created an "environmental ethic" decades before the environmental movement became a force in American politics.