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"K" is for Kelsey and Guild

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  "K" is for Kelsey and Guild. During the first decade of the 20th century, the Boston landscape architecture firm of Kelsey and Guild served as consultants to civic improvement groups in Columbia and Greenville. In 1904 Harlan Kelsey spoke about the “City Beautiful” movement in both cities that led to the creation of civic improvement organizations in the capital city and Greenville. These organizations commissioned the partners to produce citywide plans for beautification and improvement. The plans recommended public parks, broad, tree-lined boulevards, and a “civic center”---a grouping of public buildings set amid a tree-lined plaza. Although financial difficulties prevented the full implementation of the plans, the plans created by the landscape architectural firm of Kelsey and Guild introduced the concept of comprehensive municipal planning to the state and influenced municipal policy in communities in South Carolina.

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Dr. Walter Edgar has two programs on South Carolina Public Radio: Walter Edgar's Journal, and South Carolina from A to Z. Dr. Edgar received his B.A. degree from Davidson College in 1965 and his Ph.D. from the University of South Carolina in 1969. After two years in the army (including a tour of duty in Vietnam), he returned to USC as a post-doctoral fellow of the National Archives, assigned to the Papers of Henry Laurens.