Charles Mulford Robinson (1869–1917) was an American journalist and a writer who became famous as a pioneering urban planning theorist. He has the greatest influence as a missionary for urban beautification. He was the first Professor for Civic Design at University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, which was only one of two universities offering courses in urban planning at the time, the other being Harvard.
Biography Charles Mulford Robinson was born in Ramapo, New York on April 30, 1869. He earned a bachelor's degree at the University of Rochester in 1891.
Robinson wrote "The Fair as a Spectacle" in 1893, an illustrated description of Chicago's World Columbian Exposition, a watershed event for the City Beautiful Movement, and went on to write the first guide to city planning in 1901, titled The Improvement of Towns and Cities.
He married Eliza Ten Eyck Pruyn in 1896.
In 1909, he developed the original plans for the Fort Wayne Park and Boulevard System in Fort Wayne, Indiana. Note: This includes and and Accompanying photographs. He was hired in 1910 to review the city design and planning of St. Joseph, Missouri. Fully half of his report dealt with the need for park space in the city, leading to the design of the National Register of Historic Places–listed St. Joseph Park and Parkway System.
Robinson died in Albany, New York on December 30, 1917.
Works
(fulltext via OpenLibrary) 1: Philanthropic Progress 2: Educational Progress 3: Aesthetic Progress Rochester Ways. Scrantom Wetmore & Company, Rochester, New York, 1900. The Improvement of Towns and Cities. Or the Practical Basic of Civic Aesthetics. Putnam's Sons, New York, 1901. Modern Civic Art, or the City Made Beautiful. G.P. Putnam's Sons, New York, 1903. The Call of the City. Paul Elder & Company, San Francisco/New York, 1908. City Planning. G.P. Putnam's Sons, New York, 1916.
References
San Diego's City Park 1902-1910 From Parsons To Balboa Parks as Art Influences: An Interesting Book on the Improvement of Towns and Cities Renaissance of the Spirit of Civic Art is Beginning to Pervade the Municipalities (Review), Samuel Parsons, Jnr. Jon A. Peterson. The Birth of City Planning in the United States (Review), Daphne Spain
External links
Finding aid to the Charles Mulford Robinson papers at the University of Pennsylvania Libraries