News

Lake Douglas Awarded a Second David R. Coffin Publication Grant

StewardoftheLand_WEBLake Douglas, the LSU College of Art & Design’s associate dean of research and development and associate professor of the Robert Reich School of Landscape Architecture, has been awarded a 2014 David R. Coffin Publication Grant for his book, Steward of the Land: Selected Writings of Nineteenth-Century Horticulturist Thomas Affleck, to be published by LSU Press in October.

The Coffin Publication Grant, given by the Foundation for Landscape Studies, supports the research and publication of books that advance scholarship in the field of garden history and landscape studies. Douglas’s earlier book, Public Spaces, Private Gardens: A History of Designed Landscapes in New Orleans, also from LSU Press, was awarded a Coffin Publication Grant in 2011.

Steward of the Land is the first annotated collection of the works of Scotsman Thomas Affleck, a 19th-century agricultural reformer, entrepreneur, and horticulturist with ties to Mississippi, Louisiana, and Texas. A large collection of material related to Affleck’s life and commercial activities was acquired by LSU in the 1930s and is housed at Hill Memorial Library. Affleck’s writings on varied topics provide a first-hand account of advancements in agricultural techniques and practices that created a new environmental awareness in the American South, and, Douglas argues, place him alongside better-known contemporaries such as Andrew Jackson Downing and Frederick Law Olmsted in shaping public attitudes about stewardship of the land.

Visit lsupress.org for more information about Steward of the Land or read the press release here. For more information about the David R. Coffin Publication Grant, visit foundationforlandscapestudies.org.