Charles Mulford Robinson (1869–1917) was a journalist and a writer who became famous as a pioneering
urban planning
Urban planning (also called city planning in some contexts) is the process of developing and designing land use and the built environment, including air, water, and the infrastructure passing into and out of urban areas, such as transportatio ...
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
The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (UIUC, U of I, Illinois, or University of Illinois) is a public land-grant research university in the Champaign–Urbana metropolitan area, Illinois, United States. Established in 1867, it is the f ...
, which was only one of two universities offering courses in urban planning at the time, the other being
Harvard
Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Founded in 1636 and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher lear ...
.
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''.
In 1909, he developed the original plans for the
Fort Wayne Park and Boulevard System in
Fort Wayne, Indiana
Fort Wayne is a city in Allen County, Indiana, United States, and its county seat. Located in northeastern Indiana, the city is west of the Ohio border and south of the Michigan border. The city's population was 263,886 at the 2020 census ...
.
[ ''Note:'' This includes and and Accompanying photographs.] He was hired in 1910 to review the city design and planning of
St. Joseph, Missouri
St. Joseph is a city in and county seat of Buchanan County, Missouri, Buchanan County, Missouri, United States. A small portion of the city extends north into Andrew County, Missouri, Andrew County. Located on the Missouri River, it is the princ ...
. 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
The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the Federal government of the United States, United States federal government's official United States National Register of Historic Places listings, list of sites, buildings, structures, Hist ...
–listed
St. Joseph Park and Parkway System.
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
*
ttp://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.cgi?path=175811116959737 Jon A. Peterson. The Birth of City Planning in the United States (Review), Daphne Spain
External links
*
* Finding aid to th
Charles Mulford Robinson papersat th
University of Pennsylvania Libraries
{{DEFAULTSORT:Robinson, Charles Mulford
Urban theorists
Burials at Mount Hope Cemetery (Rochester)
American architecture writers
American male non-fiction writers
University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign faculty
1869 births
1917 deaths
American urban planners