Frederick Law Olmsted (April 26, 1822 – August 28, 1903) was an American journalist, landscape designer and father of American landscape architecture, famous for designing many well-known urban parks, including Central Park and Prospect Park in New York City. Other projects include the country's oldest coordinated system of public parks and parkways in Buffalo, New York; the country's oldest state park, the Niagara Reservation in Niagara Falls, New York; Mount Royal Park in Montreal in Canada; the Emerald Necklace in Boston, Massachusetts; the Belle Isle Park, in Detroit, Michigan; the Presque Isle Park in Marquette, Michigan; the Grand Necklace of Parks in Milwaukee, Wisconsin; the Cherokee Park and entire parks and parkway system in Louisville, Kentucky; the Marquette Park in Chicago; Jackson Park, Washington Park, and the Midway Plaisance in Chicago for the World's Columbian Exposition; the south portion of Chicago's Boulevard ring (its 'emerald necklace'); the landscape surrounding the United States Capitol building; George Washington Vanderbilt II's Biltmore Estate in Asheville; and Montebello Park in St. Catharines, Ontario, Canada.

Olmsted was born in Hartford, Connecticut in 1822. His father, John Olmsted, a prosperous merchant, took a lively interest in nature, people, and places, which was inherited by both Frederick Law and his younger brother, John Hull. His mother, Charlotte Law (Hull) Olmsted, died when he was scarcely four years old.

His father remarried in 1827 to Mary Ann Bull, who shared her husband's strong love of nature and had perhaps a more cultivated taste. When the young Olmsted was almost ready to enter Yale College, as a graduate of Phillips Academy in 1838, sumac poisoning weakened his eyes and he gave up college plans. After working as a seaman, merchant, and journalist, in January 1848 Olmsted settled on a farm on the south shore of Staten Island which his father helped him acquire.

This farm, originally named the Akerly Homestead, was renamed Tosomock Farm by Olmsted. It was later renamed "The Woods of Arden" by owner Erastus Wiman. (The house in which Olmsted lived still stands today at 4515 Hylan Blvd, near Woods of Arden Road.) Olmsted had a significant career in journalism.

In 1850, he traveled to England to visit public gardens, where he was greatly impressed by Joseph Paxton's Birkenhead Park. He subsequently wrote and published Walks and Talks of an American Farmer in England in 1852. This supported his getting additional work.

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