Essay Sample on Exploring Old, Weird America with Frederick Law Olmsted

Introduction

In the book "Spying on the South," Tony Horwitz tends to follow Frederick Law Olmsted's antebellum journey into the south to grasps what he terms as the "unfinished" Civil War of America. In this context, Horwitz explored the critic made by Greil Marcus concerning the "old, weird America." In this case, Horwitz does not journey alone but instead enjoys the company of Frederick Law Olmsted. The article reveals Frederick Law Olmsted as the great landscape architect in the 19th century who is famous for designing New York's Central Park.

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The article reveals that Olmsted, as a young, appears unfocussed in designing monuments by engaging in occupations such as farming and merchant seaman. In 1852, Olmsted was delivered when he found a job offer from a paper that eventually called The New York Times. The task was to roam the Antebellum South. Olmsted worked as an undercover correspondent. Thus, he organized two journeys that lasted for years with the second journey taking him as far as Texas. As years elapsed, he was able to write three books and 64 patches for the times. His traveling to Central parks holds to be the most powerful and unexpected legacy. In these vivid dispatches, Olmsted reveals more about the beliefs and lives of the Southerners to the readers. His remarkable trek also helps in reshaping the American landscape.

Similarly, Horwitz spent his first night on the road in the Cumberland town. Olmsted names the town as "comfortless." In Cumberland, Horwitz deems himself to have the same qualities as Olmsted by being an empathetic freestyle and curious conventionalist. By traveling from south to west by mule, steamboat, and a car, Horwitz tends to emulate "the drift of things" Olmsted describes of America.

In Horwitz's journey, he rediscovered Olmsted amidst the polarization and discord of this time. In his utmost desire to determine whether America is one country, he longs to discover this on his Journey. As he tends to follow Olmsted tracks, with his mode of transports being care and mule back, he journeys through Appalachia, south to River Mississippi, into the bayou of Louisiana, including Texas up to the contested borderland of Mexico. As Horwitz ventures through the beaten paths, he uncovers strange new mutations and bracing vestiges of the cotton kingdom. His hilarious and intrepid journey via an outsized American landscape displays a masterpiece in Badland and Great Plains tradition, including the own classic of the author entitled "Confederates in the Attic."

Indeed Horwitz and Olmsted shared the attributes of being empathetic and curious freestyle connectionist. In this context, as Horwitz's journey through Cumberland, he could hear town hall meetings, plantation house tours, bars, restaurants, the fallacy of the climate change, and gun rights. The other similarity is that Horwitz spent his first night on the road just like Olmsted did. The enthusiasm of Horwitz is infectious, just like Olmsted as he becomes interested in a utopian German settlement in the South of central Texas. As Horwitz displays the ironies of the fluctuating Mexican border dynamics, Olmsted almost grew radicalized against brutality and slavery he saw in the plantation.

In the book "Spying on the South," Frederick Law Olmsted is displayed as the father of American landscape architecture, unlike Horwitz. In the early half-century, Olmsted developed an interest to have an impact on the American landscape. As a 30years old traveling journalist and farmer, he commissioned himself from the former New York Daily News to journey towards Texas and Southern states in the 1850s. He published multiple books that addressed issues on politics and the distinct geography of the South in the beginning of the Civil War.

On the other hand, Tony Horwitz is a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist. Horwitz is famously known to have authored a book called "Confederates in the Attic." Before Olmsted embarks on the Southern journey, he wrote about a friend who he claimed to have a solid understanding of the fears, hopes, and sentiments of Americans on the side of widening the country divide. Based on this writing, Horwitz gets inspired by Olmsted's route as he travels to the south before the 2016 US presidential election. He based his perspective on cultural tensions that seemed contemporary parallel in racial strife and extreme polarization of the 21st century.

In his following of Olmsted, Horwitz finds most of the settlements and roads already vanished. In this context, he reveals the difference by pointing a hitching ride on many days in Ohio River on a massive coal barge. As Horwitz visits familiar tourist places such as the Alamo and New York, he tries to avoid travel-writing cliches by cheerfully talking to strangers at Cumberland bars and obscure museums. In the book "Spying on the South," the author reveals the other difference between the tour of Olmsted and Horwitz that in the 1850s, slaves would run to Mexico to seek opportunities whereas in the 21st-century illegal immigration are forced to go the other way.

Indeed, Horwitz learns more in his experience of touring in the south. Horwitz's tour to the south invokes the truth about his own acquaintances and that of Olmsted. In this context, he is disappointed when people remain unshaken about their bellies in Cumberland. Horwitz makes necessary sharp changes in tone by putting aside the present and the past grim aspects for some breezy interludes such as monster trucks and Louisiana bayou. In the same way as Olmsted travel on horseback, Horwitz also tries a life of "mule man extraordinaire." At Texas, Horwitz realizes that the Texan who seems to be a modern-day cowboy and at first appeared to be tough is disrespectful and verbally abusive.

In the book "Spying on the South," Horwitz has a stronger message to the current readers that cannot be ignored. Horwitz appears uncomfortable when generalizing over "Red State" politic based on the transition of presidencies especially from Barrack Obama to Trump. In this context, the reader may develop various questions to assess whether Horwitz is aware that doing justice would make the narrative have a different meaning of its story by drawing readers' attention to historical travelogue.

Indeed, the article "Spying on the South" speaks a volume of references to Horwitz and Olmsted's journey, which tend to blur cohesively. However, just like the contemporary journalist, the 19th-century landscape architect is marred by open-mindedness, curiosity, and kindred's of spirits about the South. In spite of its imperfections, many people are still celebrating their positive impacts. Indeed, Horwitz and Olmsted make an excellent traveling companion. In his experience to the south, Horwitz has been able to elucidate the reason immigrants are migrating to the south instead of the Mexican borderline

Bibliography

Horwitz, Tony. Spying on the South: An Odyssey Across the American Divide. London: Penguin Books, 2020.