Traces of J. B. Jackson

The Man Who Taught Us to See Everyday America

Helen L. Horowitz

• Publisher: University of Virginia Press
• Year: 2020
• Print ISBN:
  9780813943343
• eBook ISBN:
  9780813943350
• Topic: Architecture
• Subtopic: Urban Planning & Landscaping

J. B. Jackson transformed forever how Americans understand their landscape, a concept he defined as land shaped by human presence. In the first major biography of the greatest pioneer in landscape studies, Helen Horowitz shares with us a man who focused on what he regarded as the essential American landscape, the everyday places of the countryside and city, exploring them as texts that reveal important truths about society and culture, present and past. In Jackson's words, landscape is "history made visible."

After a varied life of traveling, writing, sketching, ranch labor, and significant service in army intelligence in World War II, Jackson moved to New Mexico and single-handedly created the magazine Landscape. As it grew under his direction throughout the 1950s and 1960s, Landscape attracted a wide range of contributors. Jackson became a man in demand as a lecturer and, beginning in the late 1960s, he established the field of landscape studies at Berkeley, Harvard, and elsewhere, mentoring many who later became important architects, planners, and scholars. Horowitz brings this singular person to life, revealing how Jackson changed our perception of the landscape and, through friendship as well as his writings, profoundly influenced the lives of many, including her own.

1

EARLY TRACES

First Traces

John Brinckerhoff Jackson was born on September 25, 1909. His birth certificate, registered in Dinard, France, provides the first trace of his life: “Le vingt-cinq septembre mil neuf cent neuf, à six heures du matin, est né, Roche Fontaine en cette commune, John Brinckerhoff JACKSON, du sexe masculin, de William BRINCKERHOFF, et de Alice RICHARDSON.”1

At the time of his birth, his parents had been married for roughly a year and a half, and if the data on the wedding certificate is correct, his father was in his early fifties, his mother in her early thirties.2

Two photographs of J. B. Jackson, dated 1910 and 1913, show him to be a beautiful child.3 Both were likely taken outside of the family house in Maryland where, after the family’s return from France, he spent his first years.

Figures 1. John Brinckerhoff Jackson, 1910

Figures 2. John Brinckerhoff Jackson, 1913

Figures 3.Alice Richardson Jackson, n.d.

Figures 4. William Brinckerhoff Jackson, 1920

The next written traces are travel documents from 1914, when Brinck, as he was called, was four. These give the simple facts of his family as it prepared to leave for Europe. William B. Jackson, his father, was born in 1859, in Newark, New Jersey. His height was five foot seven, his eyes gray, and his complexion swarthy. His occupation was listed as “retired.”4 Jackson’s mother, Alice Richardson Jackson, was born in St. Louis, Missouri, in 1879 in this telling, although her gravestone gives the year as 1876. Along with J. B. Jackson’s correct year and place of birth, one learns that his two half siblings were also born abroad: Betty in Lucerne, Switzerland, in 1901, and Wayne in Weisbaden, Germany, in 1905. All five members of the household lived in Glen Court, Silver Spring, in Montgomery County, Maryland. They left the United States for Europe on July 18, 1914,5 just ten days before Austria declared war on Serbia, igniting World War I.

When the Jackson family returned to the United States, sailing from Naples on September 10, 1914, it consisted of Alice Jackson and her three children.6 Young Brinck, by his own account, never saw his father again. The four resettled in New York City. The 1920 census located them in a rented apartment at 1142 Madison Avenue, with Alice as the household’s head.7 Remaining in Europe, William served during the war with the Red Cross as a lieutenant colonel. In 1920, he became the Red Cross’s commissioner to Albania.8 A letter of appointment and a 1920 photograph of a dapperly dressed William Jackson, standing under ancient arches in Tirania, Albania—sent to his brother, not to his son—is one of the few bits of evidence of Brinck’s father’s existence after World War I.9

Figure 5. J. B. Jackson, boyhood, studio photograph

While such information is useful background, the kind of evidence that enables a richer understanding of J. B. Jackson’s life and mentality derives from later in his childhood.

School

First the facts, and a bit of visual evidence. Brinck Jackson received his earliest formal education at New York’s Riverdale School, then for boys only. It was followed by two years at Institut Le Rosey in Switzerland, a boarding school famous for educating children of the international elite. A photograph of Jackson during these years shows him on skates, although, by his report, skiing was his favored activity.

Figure 6. J. B. Jackson, Le Rosey, third from left

When Brinck was fourteen, his mother attempted to enter him in Deerfield Academy in western Massachusetts. However, he was determined unqualified for admittance and placed at Eaglebrook Lodge, a new boarding school for younger students, created as a feeder school for the academy. Because of the connection between Deerfield and Eaglebrook, most correspondence regarding Jackson between 1924 and his graduation from preparatory school in 1928 resides in the Deerfield archives. These letters reveal that although the young Jackson was shaped significantly by his mother and the schools he attended, early on he demonstrated the independence of mind, rebellious streak, brilliance, and personal charm that later defined him.

In March 1924, Frank Boyden, Deerfield’s headmaster, received a strong complaint from Alice Jackson, who suggested she might place her son in another school. Boyden turned to Wilmot V. Trevoy, a fellow Amherst alumnus in the class of 1902, then living in New York City and working with youth, asking him to serve as an intermediary to ascertain Alice Jackson’s specific concerns.10

Trevoy reported in early April that Mrs. Jackson was “still on the rampage about Eaglebrook.” In his view, the problem was that “she has kept Brinck with her so much and has talked to him in such grown-up fashion that she has partially spoiled [him] for contact with boys of his own age.” Brinck was thus unable to deal with the normal talk of schoolboys, “their various ‘kicks’ which do not really mean a thing,” and interpreted their complaints “as having a basis,” which he conveyed to his mother. Trevoy advised Boyden simply to respond courteously and let Trevoy take on, if necessary, “the role of the Dutch uncle and give the Dutch uncle’s talk,” meaning he planned to speak frankly, even harshly, to Mrs. Jackson. In the meantime, he did not think Boyden should seek another school for Mrs. Jackson’s son.11

Alice Jackson clearly thought differently, because at the end of the academic year she took Brinck abroad, where he studied at Institut Carrial in France.12 Upon their return the following year, 1925, she enrolled him at Choate, a preparatory school then known for its hold on the upper-class Eastern establishment. And it is at Choate that an early intimate trace of Jackson himself emerges. In a box of Jackson materials delivered to the CSWR in the summer of 2017 is a letter Brinck wrote in early spring 1926 to his mother.13 Behind it must have been a letter from the headmaster of Choate to Alice Jackson regarding her son—one that, in turn, provoked a letter from her to Brinck urging him to behave in a more disciplined fashion. Her words elicited a reply that tells a great deal about the sixteen-year-old’s sense of independent judgment and his effort to disentangle himself from part of his heritage.

To his “Darling Mother,” he wrote that he had just received her letter “exhorting” him “to discipline.” With this he firmly disagreed. What he needed was not discipline, which implied “conflict that must be put down.” Rather, he needed to be convinced to do the right thing for its own sake. Neither a “10 year old [n]or a criminal” should be forced to obey either his teachers or the law. They should be “persuaded that what they are doing is right. Then they can be loyal to the idea.” The school authorities or possibly Alice herself had proposed he go “without tea for a month.” He countered that “total abstinence from lying, for a day would be better.”

Brinck interlarded his statements with conciliatory terms of address—“sweetness” and “darling”—but concluded with a sharp rebuke: “don[’]t ever tell me I have puritan blood or that either you or father have it. It[’]s a thing to be ashamed of not to be proud of. They may have had a lot to do with founding of America but not otherwise than materially. It[’]s just what they stood for intolerance, selfrightousness that everyone is fighting against now[.] Besides ancestors don[’]t t[h]rill me.” To a mother who treasured her lineage and valued the name “Brinckerhoff,” this reproach must have seemed like a personal insult. In his teen years Brinck’s rebellious streak led him to question his heritage.

Brinck also then understood the social and cultural context of forces attempting to control him, as conveyed in this letter by his sendup of the way that Choate sought to train its students in proper behavior in assemblies. The headmaster directs the chorus of teachers. “When he is officially humorous the satellites rock with mirth, and when he is in a denouncing mood they frown and pouch their lower lip.” The oldest boys then imitate their teachers to the audience of the younger students under their domain.

Figure 7. J. B. Jackson with his dog

The headmaster and his assistant had their own perspectives on Brinck Jackson, however, as can be seen from their letters in the archives of Deerfield Academy, where Alice Jackson was once again attempting to place her son. “Brincky is an attractive boy, a brilliant conversationalist, the kind of person you would like to have with you on a camping trip,” wrote C. Wardell St. John (assistant to his father, Choate’s headmaster) to Frank Boyden. He added discreetly, however, that “the boy’s education has been interrupted too frequently, and his Mother does seem to change her plans pretty often.” With this, he forwarded Brinck’s transcript with the comment, “It’s not very good, as you can see.”14

Figure 8. J. B. Jackson, early teen years

Headmaster George C. St. John offered Boyden a more detailed report: “Brincky is a very exceptional case: he is a boy whom we should gladly keep here and gladly recommend to you, though he has made a very poor record in his work and shows no sign of any promise of doing better.” The boy is, he added, “an intellectual and an individualist” who “believes that he can guide his own education better than any school or college can, and calmly buries himself in Machiavelli’s ‘Florence’ when he should be preparing an Algebra lesson or doing required exercise.” Young Jackson was capable but had “never trained himself—or been trained—to do a task that didn’t interest him, or to conquer a lesson of which he personally couldn’t see the value.” On the other hand, the headmaster continued, he is “charming, lovable, interesting and responsive,” though “as obstinate as an allegory on the banks of the Nile when it comes to having his own way.”15 Then again, “he is the best educated boy we have in School! He provides a really intellectual stimulus to table conversation, does unusual work for the Literary Magazine, is a wholly congenial companion for the Masters—and seems to earn a place for himself on those grounds.” In conclusion, St. John wrote to Boyden, “If you succeed in making the boy see the value of routine and the daily task, I think you may be helping in the creation of a great man!”16

Figure 9. J. B. Jackson, midteen years

Clearly, Choate’s headmaster perceived Boyden of Deerfield Academy as a magician who could turn stubborn or recalcitrant boys into good students. During his long administration (1902–66), Boyden reshaped a coeducational academy on the Connecticut River in central Massachusetts into a well-regarded preparatory school. By the late 1920s, it accepted boys as boarding students.17 For these male students, Boyden was no ordinary school head. He was everywhere in the school, attempting to know and shape each of his boys. In The Headmaster: Frank L. Boyden of Deerfield, John McPhee wrote that, rather than receiving a report card, each Deerfield boy ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• CONTENTS
• List of Illustrations
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction
• 1. Early Traces
• 2. Early Writings
• 3. Wartime Service
• 4. Landscape Years
• 5. Forays: Travel Journals, Home and Abroad, 1954–1960
• 6. At the Podium
• 7. The Man I Knew
• 8. Tracking the Vernacular
• 9. What Lives On
• Notes
• Illustration Credits
• Index
• Color Gallery