96 



TRANSACTIONS OF THE AMERICAN SOCIETY 



local possibilities' . and as com- 



manding 'substantially the unanimous ap- 

 pro\'al of our best qualified citizens.' But 

 perhaps a more striking evidence of the 

 satisfaction which it gave is in the fact 

 that on the day that Mr. Robinson sailed 

 for home a delegation from the Associa- 

 tion Improvement Societies presented 

 him with a purse voluntarily subscribed. 



"Returning to the mainland, the city 

 administration in Oakland, Calif., en- 

 gaged Mr. Robinson to . . . report on 

 the park possibilities — a matter in which 

 there was then very little popular in- 

 terest. Six months after the report was 

 submitted and published, an issue of 

 $993,000 in bonds, for the purchase of 

 lands he selected, was voted on by the 

 people. There was now great interest. 

 The Board of Trade, the Merchants' Ex- 

 change and every civic organization en- 

 dorsed the project, an open letter to the 

 citizens from Mr. Robinson was pub- 

 lished in the papers, and on election day 

 the principal business and manufacturing 

 houses gave their workmen an extra half 

 hour in order that all might vote. The 

 result was an extraordinarily heavy poll, 

 with a majority of five to one in favor 

 of the issue, while there were about a 

 dozen precincts in each of which the 

 negative vote was less than ten. 



"An improvement club in the little 

 city of Watertown, N. Y., engaged his 

 services for a preliminary study, and then 

 commissioned him to execute various 

 definite plans. The rival city of Ogdens- 

 burg, on the St. Lawrence, learning of 

 the success at Watertown, sent for him 

 next. Jamestown, N. Y., engaged him 

 through its new park commission. . . . 

 Dubuque, Iowa, called him next. He was 

 employed there by a Joint Committee 

 representative of the Commercial Club, 

 The Federated Women's Clubs, and the 

 Trades and Labor Congress. His west- 

 ern trips had come to be a series of re- 

 ceptions. ... At Des Moines, . . . 



at Cedar Rapids, Salt Lake, Spokane, 

 Seattle — wherever he stopped — commer- 

 cial, civic, or political bodies made him 

 their guest." 



Among still other American cities 

 which have called on him for advice as 

 to their plan or development, should be 

 noted: Ridgewood, N. J.; Cedar Rapids, 

 Iowa ; San Jose. Calif. ; Fayetteville, 

 N. Y. ; Los Angeles and Santa Barbara, 

 Calif. ; Waterloo, Iowa ; Fort Wayne, 

 Ind. ; Binghamton, N. Y. ; Raleigh, N. C. ; 

 Council Blufifs, Iowa; Alton, 111.; Greens- 

 boro, N. C. ; St. Joseph, Mo.; Omaha, 

 Neb.; and Long Beach, Calif. For all 

 these, reports have been published, 

 which, in most cases, give his sole recom- 

 mendations, but in some cases embody 

 the joint recommendations of a group of 

 experts of which he has been one ; as in 

 the case of Columbus, Ohio, where the 

 Plan Commission included also Austin 

 W. Lord, architect; Charles N. Lowrie, 

 landscape architect; Albert Kelsey, archi- 

 tect; and H. A. McNeil, sculptor; De- 

 troit, Mich., in which project he was as- 

 sociated with Frederick Law Olmsted, 

 Jr. ; and Omaha, Neb., where he collabo- 

 rated with George B. Ford and E. P. 

 Goodrich. 



From October, 1915, to his death, Rob- 

 inson had been continuously associated 

 as Consultant on City Planning with Mr. 

 William Pitkin, Jr., landscape architect, 

 of Rochester, who notes the following 

 projects as the most important ones on 

 which Robinson was engaged in this 

 capacity during the last two and a quar- 

 ter years of his short, busy life: a report 

 to the City of Lancaster, Pa., on the 

 selection of a station site, submitted 

 March, 1917 ; a city plan for Greensboro, 

 N. C, the rough draft of which was com- 

 pleted by Robinson a few days before 

 his death and has since been printed in 

 the original form (the week before he 

 died, he had been at Greensboro at work 

 on this plan) ; a plan for the development 



