Stephen Child (1866 – 1936)
Biography
Stephen Child graduated from MIT in 1888 with a major in civil
engineering. From 1891 to 1901 he was deputy street commissioner
and superintendent of the sewer department of the city of Newton,
Massachusetts. He studied landscape architecture under Frederick Law
Olmsted at Harvard University from 1901 to 1903. Afterwards he focused
on city planning in addition to landscape planning, and designed
several parks and communities in the western United States. His offices
were headquartered in San Francisco.
Stephen Child, a Boston native, graduated from MIT in 1888 with a major in civil engineering. From 1891 to 1901 he was deputy street commissioner and superintendent of the sewer department of the City of Newton, Massachusetts. After practicing as a civil engineer for 13 years, he studied at Harvard under Frederick Law Olmsted, Jr., as a special student of landscape architecture and city planning. Afterwards he established a private practice that operated both in Boston and in Santa Barbara, California, producing designs for parks, neighborhoods, and institutions on both coasts. In 1914, he relocated his practice to San Francisco and embraced larger-scaled city planning projects. During WWI, Child served as a town planner for the United States Housing Corporation from 1918-1919. His designs included projects at Aberdeen and Indianhead, Maryland; Dahlgren, Virginia; Ilion, New York; and Stamford, Connecticut.
Child was active in the professional organizations of landscape architecture. He served as the west coast representative to the American Society of Landscape Architects (ASLA), was the chair of one of the society’s committees, and was an original member of the American City Planning Institute. He also served on the board of directors of the Lowthorpe School of Landscape Architecture, Gardening and Horticulture for Women, which was supported by many of the other pre-eminent leaders of landscape architecture (1). He supplemented these institutional roles by giving freelance lectures in various locations throughout the United States.(2)
Sample Projects
Colonia Solana, Tucson, Arizona
Child often designed based on the existing topography, in both his landscape architecture and town planning projects. The Colonia Solana Subdivision followed such principles.
Sources/Further Information:
Designing MIT : Bosworth's New Tech by Mark Jarzombek (Boston: Northeastern University Press, 2004)
Pioneers of American landscape design edited by Charles A. Birnbaum and Robin S. Karson (New York: McGraw-Hill, 2000)
Obituary, Landscape Architecture (v. 27, October 1935, pp. 33-34).
(1) “Training Women As Gardeners,” Boston Daily Globe, Oct. 26, 1913.
(2)
“To Beautify the River Basin,” Boston Daily Globe, Nov. 8, 1908. “Child Will Discuss Landscape Designs,” The Washington Post, Mar. 4, 1923.
