ABSTRACT
Yet the tragedy stimulated Olmsted and seemed to give him back the ability to work at top speed and with high energy. He handled first one thing and then another without pause. “I am at Harry's desk with stacks of his papers and memoranda to be examined,"5 he wrote John on February 4. He had, like a general who had lost his trusted deputy, taken on the field command himself. He decided also that Charles Eliot should be plucked from his quiet private practice in Boston and offered a partnership in the firm. The thing was quickly done, although Eliot hesitated momentarily, valuing his individual freedom but valuing even more a chance to work in the Olmsted firm. The name of the firm was changed on March 1, 1893, to Olmsted, Olmsted and Eliot. ‘T e ll Eliot that I shall expect him not later than Thursday next," Frederick wrote to John Olmsted on February 5. John laid out before Charles Eliot in the Warren Street office all the concerns of the business. Chicago was the most urgent concern of the moment : “No end of work to be done here. It is appaling (Olmsted's spelling)."6
