Landscape Journal 20:2–01 Russell 141

YOU DEAR OLD PRIMA DONNA: THE LETTERSOF FRANK LLOYD WRIGHT AND JENS JENSENVirginia L. Russell, FASLA

Virginia L. Russell, FASLA, AssociateProfessor of Architecture at the Uni-versity of Cincinnati, holds a Bache-lor of Science degree in LandscapeArchitecture from the University ofKentucky and a Master of LandscapeArchitecture degree from Ohio StateUniversity. Her research interests in-clude Jens Jensen and The Clearing,experiential education and the Dan-ish Folk School, the design of retreatcenters, ecotourism, and the historyof the ASLA. She has served in nu-merous positions for the ASLA, in-cluding national Vice President ofMembership (1996–1998), and she iscurrently the national chair of theASLA Archives Committee.

Abstract: The correspondence of Jens Jensen (1860–1951) and Frank Lloyd Wright(1867–1959) reveals an important relationship in the history of landscape architectureand architecture. The collected letters, dated from 1912 to 1943, reflect a passionate differ-ence of opinion regarding design, education and pedagogy, practice, lifestyle, moral values,and despite the contradictions, a mutual regard that was sustained by their animated con-versation. This paper selects those letters of Jensen, Wright, and other players in theirdrama that illuminate the history of two unusual schools of design: Jensen’s Clearing inDoor County, Wisconsin and Wright’s Taliesin Fellowship in Spring Green, Wisconsinand Scottsdale, Arizona. The reader may wonder, which Master called the other “PrimaDonna?”

The legacies of Frank LloydWright and Jens Jensen in-

clude more than their contributionsto the philosophy of design describedas the Prairie Style, born in theMidwest. Both men, disappointedin the results of higher educationand wanting to teach on their ownterms, created their own schools inWisconsin: Wright’s Taliesin Fellow-ship near Spring Green founded in1932, and Jensen’s Clearing in Elli-son Bay begun in 1935. Their corre-spondence from 1912 to 1943, afterWright had left Chicago and they nolonger met frequently around town,is an important record which docu-ments the evolution of both schools.In these letters they find in eachother an uncommon support for theidea of a new, distinctly Americanschool for the training of architectsand landscape architects.

Background of the ResearchThis author’s inquiry began

with a week at The Clearing in 1989,as the realization of a goal set ingraduate school and an unfulfilling

reference to the place in her thesisabout the design of retreat centers.Reading what could be found aboutJensen was the warp of a tapestry wo-ven with colorful characters likeWright, and for want of publishedmaterial about Jensen, the authorturned to his correspondence to findthe pattern of his school’s develop-ment. Knowing only vaguely thatthere was a connection to Wright andTaliesin, the author’s search led toWright’s correspondence for a morepersonal view than what was told inthe many books about the TaliesinFellowship. Wright’s letters are easyto find; most are available on care-fully indexed and cross-referencedmicrofiche at the archives of theFrank Lloyd Wright Foundation atTaliesin West in Arizona, under themeticulous care of a dedicated staffand Bruce Brooks Pfeiffer, or in vari-ous archives across the country.Jensen’s letters, including those to

and from Wright, are more difficultto collect. Morton Arboretum andThe Clearing have a more or less re-dundant collection of Jensen’s corre-spondence, and because there is noJensen equivalent of the Frank LloydWright Foundation, it is difficult forowners of Jensen archival material,including Jensen’s descendants, toknow the proper repository for theirprivate collections.

Another obstacle presented tothe Jensen scholar is the result of a1937 fire in The Clearing’s Lodge,which destroyed Jensen’s art collec-tion, his drawings, and his docu-ments. Neither the Morton Arbore-tum nor The Clearing’s collectionsinclude the correspondence ofWright and Jensen, although they doinclude extensive correspondencewith people from the time beforeand after the Lodge fire. The pri-mary source of Jensen correspon-dence is Morton Arboretum. The re-mainder is found in the collectionsof those to whom he wrote, such asthe Library of Congress collection ofthe Wisconsin legislator Phillip

LaFollette, in the Franz Aust collec-tion of the Wisconsin State HistoricalSociety, and in other scattered sites.

Once the Jensen correspon-dence has been found, perhaps themost difficult obstacle to overcome isthe challenge of Jensen’s handwrit-ing (Figure 1). Much of his corre-spondence was typed by his secretaryand assistant at The Clearing, MerthaFulkerson (Figure 2). There musthave been occasions when Jensenhesitated to interrupt her weaving orother duties so he took it upon him-self to hand write his letters, and themajority of the letters from Jensen toWright are handwritten.1 This authorhas observed that much of Jensen’scorrespondence appears on sta-tionery printed with The Clearing’slogo, and this includes the earlier let-ters from his Ravinia studio by thesame name. However, many of theletters appear on stationery with the same long thin pine tree drawingabove the name “West Blow,” whichmay have been the earliest name ofthe Ellison Bay Clearing, perhapswhen it was still the family vacationproperty.

A story that appeared in a 1943edition of The Milwaukee Journal sub-stantiates the difficulties of translat-ing Jensen’s handwritten script. Thereporter interviewing Jensen at The Clearing asked him to describethe routine at the school, and Jensentold a story on himself to illustratethe challenges of providing hospital-ity to the many unexpected visitorswho appeared at The Clearing. Onone occasion, there was nothing inthe kitchen to serve for dessert, soJensen scribbled a note requestingDanish coffeecake and sent it to thebakery in the nearby village. WhenJensen opened the bakery box toserve the dessert, he found caviar.2This author can certainly sympathizewith the baker’s translation ofJensen’s handwriting and his effortsto appease this notoriously intemper-ate man by scrambling to find caviarin the wilds of Door County.

The letters are presented herein an order that builds the under-standing of their relationship, theearly days of struggle at both schools,their pedagogy, and the end of theirfriendship. The letters have not been

corrected for grammar or spelling; afew letters have been edited for rele-vance or length.

Background of the MastersThe story of Jensen and

Wright’s professional collaboration isfairly well known, documented inLeonard Eaton’s book Landscape

Artist in America (1964), and more re-cently in Bob Grese’s book JensJensen: Maker of Natural Parks and Gar-dens (1992). In 1893, Wright left hisapprenticeship with Adler and Sulli-van and began his own practice bycultivating the moderately wealthysuburban clientele of Chicago. Mean-while, Jensen’s stormy dealings with

142 Landscape Journal

Figure 1. A New Year’s greeting from Jensen to Wright, dated January 1, 1912, whichreads: “I wish you a very happy new year and hope you will come out victorious of yourpresent difficulties. Of course you can never expect to please “Society” but what of it! So-ciety is rotten and those that follows it destined to oblivion!” Courtesy of the Frank LloydWright Foundation.

Chicago’s leading citizens, who resis-ted his ideas for natural parks and hisbattles with political graft, were ironi-cally securing for him an impressivelist of estate design projects for theindustrialists Henry Babson, Henry

Ford, J. Ogden Armour, and others.Jensen’s attempts to persuade hisclients to employ the architects of thePrairie Style, including Wright, wereoften fruitless (Eaton 1964, p. 210).For a time Jensen and Wright both

had offices in Steinway Hall (Grese1992, p. 44), Wright was a frequentvisitor at the Ravinia studio;3 theywere both members of the CliffDwellers club and other social andliterary groups, and frequent visitorsat Jane Addams’ Hull House. Theydid collaborate, however moodily, onfive residential projects from 1908 to1936 (Figure 3).4 The earliest lettersthey exchange are brief invitations toattend discussions and lectures, andafter 1910, when Wright had movedto Spring Green, the letters arelonger, replacing the frequent con-tact they had when they ran in thesame social and professional circlesof Chicago.

Friendship and CynicismIn a 1930 letter to Jensen,

Wright described his suffering at thehands of his architectural colleaguesfor their “malicious propaganda”about him, and offered to Jensensome speculation about why they hadnot worked together more often:

However, even friends (like your-self for instance) seldom give me ahand unless dragged in by thebeard or back-hair and intimi-dated? During 27 years for instancenever has any work on your ac-count come to me or any on my ac-count gone to you, although I havehad little or none to give these pastten years having been in deeptrouble. It would be quite naturalthat you should want to work withme, whenever you could? yes? Butis it that a Star is seldom willing toshare with a Star. The Star will seeklesser men to accomplish his pur-pose, as a matter, he mistakenlythinks, of self-preservation.(Wright 1930)

Jensen’s response to this letterbegins with a modest objection tobeing described as a “Star,” and con-tinues:

I have no such aspiration, and asfor you, you ought to be exceed-ingly happy to have been gifted incertain ways that it has been madepossible for you to assume leader-ship in certain phases of lifes [sic]work. In that alone lies all the gloryof life here. There can be no other.Mere material glory gives no gen-uine pleasure.

You have no cause for anybitterness towards your fellow man.

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Figure 2. Mertha Fulkerson, (n.d.) who became Jensen’s secretary at the age of nineteenand his successor at The Clearing in 1951. Courtesy of The Clearing.

You have succeeded beyond mostmortal kinds, if real accomplish-ments is [sic] success, as it is mea-sured by human minds. I am notenvious. Great accomplishmentscarry with them great responsibili-ties. Those you cannot escape. Ihave no quarrel with you nor anyman as long as they do not infringeupon my ideals of life, travel theirown way as they see and under-stand life, like the stars in their ownsphere without interference withthe others, yet all joining in a har-monious whole, lighting up theheavens for the joy and inspirationof all of us . . . But ideal life doesnot exist as it should. We are nogods, but just humans, created inthe reflection of the Great Master,but we do know what is right andwhat is wrong and may choose ei-ther path. They that are less suc-cessful will steal from those that aremore . . . I have resigned myself tothis, for I too have taken sound-ings, and I too know what I have ac-complished and that knowing givesme joy, peace and happiness . . . Ican forget those that steals my workand calls it their own.

I wish to be remembered toyour good wife, and to yourself aparting word—Look over yoursnow covered hills, across the valleyof the purple horizon, over thisnoble creation that is not of yourmaking, and be happy that you areable to enjoy and appreciate it in sogreat a measure. (Jensen 1930a)

This exchange demonstrates atypical pattern in the correspon-dence of Jensen and Wright. Wrightrails against his circumstances andJensen calms him with stern andmodest admonitions. When Wrightproclaims his superior but misunder-stood abilities, Jensen brings himdown with homilies and reminders tocount his blessings. Perhaps this re-veals Jensen’s absorption of the basictenets of the Danish Folk School,which was his pedagogical model forThe Clearing, and its guiding prin-ciple of jantelov, which translates as“relentless leveling.” David W. Lesliedescribes this leveling as an impor-tant aspect of the Danish personality:

[Jantelov] . . . provides an informalbut powerful check on ambition orego display in Danish society. Self-promotion and high achievementare likely to meet open ridiculeand disapproval. (Leslie 1995)

In an earlier letter to Jensen,Wright mentions their dialogueabout the character and creative at-tributes of Man, and his intentionsfor his own school:

Now I believe the creative instinctin Man is that quality or faculty inhim of getting himself reborn andborn again—of getting himselfborn into everything that he does,everything that he really works with. . . Now how to get it back—thisquality of Man—back again to men. . . Our first concern about thatshould be the first thought of everythinking man in our country today. . .

And that Jens, is why I am in-terested in this proposed school. Ishould like to be one to initiatesteps that would put a little experi-mental station at work where thisthing might be wooed and won, ifonly to a small extent. I know itcannot be taught. (Wright 1928)

Both men were cynical aboutthe state of higher education inAmerica, perhaps because Wrightleft the university environment with-

out a degree and yet made a way forhimself, and Jensen’s education inthe Danish Folk School taught himto value experience more highlythan books and lectures, but that didnot stop either man from acceptinghonorary doctorates or solicitinguniversities for money or resourcesto support their schools. In a letterto Alice Drought, with whom Jensenhad an extensive correspondenceabout the site for his school, Jensenstates:

. . . My feeling on this school mat-ter is that we have to fight the artifi-cial civilization of our cities to beable to create a sound and honestcultural background. A school likethat is not for Landscape Archi-tects. Where they evidently wouldbe the minority. It would be morefor Poets, Philosophers, Painters,Sculptors, Musicians and especiallyComposers, Dramatists, and per-haps Architects and Landscape Ar-chitects. When I meet a profes-sional man, architect, I always feelthat he is of a narrow type, andtherefore unable to grasp thedepth and real meaning of such aneducational Institution. (Jensen1930b)

Wright was cynical not onlyabout the product of a professional

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Figure 3.The Avery Coonley House, one of the Jensen/Wright collaborations. Courtesy ofMorton Arboretum.

degree program, but the motivationsof the students and parents. Hestated:

Most parents have children . . . Sothey have to be sent somewhere.And of course these schools andcolleges are more or less creches,different stages of creches to whichwe send the boys and girls becausewe can’t do anything else withthem. It’s too much trouble . . . Soeducation is more or less a refugefor shall we say the incompetent?Anyway, the colleges are doing agreat work to relieve parents oftheir responsibilities. (Pfeiffer1987)

Domestic CatalystsAt this juncture, the author sug-

gests that the domestic situations ofWright and Jensen were the catalystsfor the creation of the Taliesin Fel-lowship and The Clearing. Wrightfound himself in a sort of chosen ex-ile, where circumstances would leadto the decision to stay put and re-build his life. Similarly, the death ofhis wife gave Jensen the grievous free-dom to cast off the city and rebuildhis life around a dream.

Taliesin Fellowship. Althoughboth Jensen and Wright revered na-ture in their work, they were philo-sophically opposed on the domesticfront. While Jensen and his belovedAnne Marie were thriving in Ravinia,Wright was becoming notorious forhis affairs, one of which would even-tually precipitate his desertion of hiswife and six children in 1909 withMamah Borthwick Cheney, the wifeof a client in Chicago. After a trip toEurope, Wright and Mrs. Cheneytook refuge in the remote Jonesvalley in Wisconsin where Wrightwas raised. Wright’s exile with Mrs.Cheney brought him closer to realiz-ing his dream of building a schoolfor the allied arts. Twenty-four yearsearlier he had designed and built forhis aunts the Hillside School, an un-usual co-ed institution, on his fam-ily’s farm. As the aunts aged, and thefinancial hardships of the early 1900stook their toll on the school’s census,they urged Wright to ensure that itwould continue as an educational fa-cility (Pfeiffer 1982, p. 3). In 1911

Wright built his home there, and fol-lowing the tradition of his family touse Welsh names, he christened hishome “Taliesin,” meaning “shiningbrow,” after one of the knights ofKing Arthur’s Round Table and aDruid poet (Meehan 1984, p.44).

There were hardships one afteranother: Mrs. Cheney was murderedand Taliesin was virtually destroyedby fire in 1914. But Wright stayed on,bringing in apprentices to continuehis practice, rebuilding Taliesin andrestoring Hillside School, and even-tually remarrying, first Miriam Noel,and finally Olgivanna Hinzenburg(Figure 4). Despite another devastat-ing fire in 1925, Wright’s practice wassurviving, with twenty-three appren-tices working in the studio, the onlymajor part of Taliesin to remain un-touched by both fires. Wright foundthis ominous; he believed God hadcondemned his lifestyle by destroyinghis home, but endorsed his work bysparing his studio (Pfeiffer 1982,p. 3).

For Wright, marriage with Olgi-vanna brought a stability and culturalrichness to Taliesin, and it was in thisatmosphere that they decided to for-malize their school. Wright’s restora-tion of the Hillside School was in-tended for his own school, but his

financial circumstances would notpermit this, and Wright found him-self in a desperate state.5 In 1927, heapproached a mutual client of hisand Jensen’s, Mrs. Avery Coonley,and asked her to buy the HillsideSchool. He asked Jensen to back himup in persuading her. He also askedJensen if he might have any friendsinterested in buying his art, and ifJensen might advise him about howto proceed in this difficult time:

I have beautiful Object D’art thatanyone who knows fine things ofthe sort would be proud to own. Ido not want more for them thanthey are worth. With your helpsome of your people might be will-ing to buy them or take them as se-curity for a loan of enough to makethe ends of the economic situationmeet, and be made happy them-selves.

I have gone as far as I can, Ifear in my little circle of loyal de-fenders of my faith.

Will you come into that circleand take an active part in my ac-counts and that means my architec-tural salvation at this moment?

If you will devote some ofyour time and energy to me, Jens,write me and let me know and wewill get together and talk it all overand take stock of ways and means.

Russell 145

Figure 4. Frank Lloyd Wright and Olgivanna at Spring Green, 1930. Courtesy of theFrank Lloyd Wright Foundation.

I, somehow, reach out to a conser-vation I feel in you, I have not builtup in myself—in other words—Iwould avail myself of your strengthin my weakness—now. (Wright1927)

Jensen’s reply includes a brac-ing cocktail of jantelov and homage,but no money:

Where in heavens did you get thethoughts from to write thosewords? It sounds like a bootleggingcontractor or politician. You oughtto be ashamed of yourself. What Ido not understand is why thosewonderful hills and your beautifulhouse have not made you moresensible.

When you say you are astranger in your own land you arequite right. But the prophet hasalways been stoned by his ownpeople. As I told you the visit toyour house was an event in my life. . . I know that the impressions car-ried with me—some from your in-teriors, some from your exteriors,of course not including the Chi-nese Gods—was that the Americanof tomorrow will want to live in thatsort of a house. It is like the Ameri-can but he does not know it . . .

I certainly would be glad tohelp you, not with money as youstate, because I have not got anyand I never shall have any. I will al-ways consider you as a friend andhave never failed saying so inpublic when others stoned you.(Jensen 1927)

Wright continued to pursue themeans to build his school, and foundstrong support in another mutualfriend, Professor Franz Aust of theUniversity of Wisconsin-Madison.Aust and Wright worked together ona proposal for the University of Wis-consin to support Wright’s school. InDecember of 1929, Wright and Austmet with university faculty and ad-ministrators to present the proposal,which included letters of supportfrom Jensen and others. In a subse-quent letter to Aust, Wright makeshis dissatisfaction with the meetingclear:

You will probably be unable toimagine my surprise and chagrin tofind, the other day at our meeting;the school I had proposed andplanned so far drifted from its orig-

inal character and intent. TakingFrank Lloyd Wright out of the pic-ture to substitute F.L.Wright andremove the original impulse to“Door County” seems necessary, inyour opinion, to the success of therevised idea?

I came forward with a defi-nite establishment that was no ex-periment but an accomplished factin the world of creation that wouldcommand united, distinguished,and effective support just becauseFrank Lloyd Wright had for thirtyyears or more fought for it singlehanded and given it a place in theestimation of a superior culturalworld.

I asked for aid and comfortin carrying the inner thought orprinciple of that work and its de-tails further along in behalf of themany young men and women whoare writing continually to me tofind out where those principlesand ideals are at work so that theymight share in that work.

To date there is but one suchplace in the United States and thatis the little studio at Taliesin. If youimagine “Cranbrook” is even simi-lar you must guess again. If youimagine Jens Jensen knows whatthat central idea distinctly is, as Iknow [sic] see, or would ascribe toit if he knew, you must guess oncemore . . .

This sounds as though Iimagined myself to be the particu-lar priest, exponent, or what-you-will, of the working principle inquestion, and the further into dis-cussion I get with those who aresupposed to know, or suppose theyknow, the more likely that assump-tion looks, even to myself.

. . . I reached out to an ubiq-uitous University, through you as aslender means of communication,to ask recognition and approvaland help to make more useful inbehalf of our state and country thiswork that has already changed thethought and remodeled the formsof the entire European modernworld. Yes, why assume a modestythat is political or hypocritical?

Your own assumption thatsuch effort should not be “domi-nated” (your low-down for “In-spired”) by any single or central

person and should not have theback-ground, even, of the Art of Ar-chitecture, that Art containing initself as it does all the others, as theframe-work and true back-groundof civilization itself, is too muchapiece with the ignorant-prejudiceof the academies to deserve morethan contempt. (Wright 1929)

The reference to “remove theoriginal impulse to Door County”may come from the discussionsamong Jensen, Wright, and Austabout the proposed schools, andAust had been taking his Universityof Wisconsin landscape architecturestudents to Door County to work withJensen on what was then still his vaca-tion property, but was under consid-eration as the site of Jensen’s school.One could speculate that in thecourse of the discussion, someone,perhaps Aust, suggested that thereshould be such a school as a satelliteof the University, and suggested thatit could benefit from the inclusion ofseveral prominent people, includingJens Jensen. But indeed, a Star is sel-dom willing to work with anotherStar.

An arrangement with the Uni-versity would have been an expedientmeans to support Wright’s school,but he was apparently determined tobe the potentate regardless of whopaid the bills. Wright issued the Uni-versity an ultimatum that his offerwould be withdrawn as of April 1,1930, and in an immediate reply Austmade a conciliatory effort:

Every one agreed that it was a bigidea. An idea that should be fos-tered, nurtured and grow at Wis-consin. Everyone recognized thehighly inspirational value of yourwork, your studies and I would sayyour home as it is today. Everyonewho has participated in our visits toTaliesin has felt and testified ofthat influence . . . The idea is a bigone. It can’t die! Here’s wishingyou every success. I’m “licked” butI’m with you 100% whether thedoor is left open or closed. (Aust1929)

Wright continued to approachfriends, relatives, banks, and grantfunding sources. In 1932 the TaliesinFellowship was announced, and inearly 1933 a lengthy prospectus was

146 Landscape Journal

mailed to all parts of the world. Theconcepts described within thebrochure were immediately aban-doned because Wright found themto be “too educational” (Pfeiffer1982, p. 8), but the absence of a cur-rent brochure did not stop the floodof inquiries, and the Taliesin Fellow-ship enjoyed immediate success.Wright and the apprentices contri-buted a column called “At Taliesin”to several southern Wisconsin news-papers and this publicity, and the in-vitations to the public to attend thefilms shown in the Hillside Theatre,drew the curious to Taliesin in suchnumbers that Wright saw them as asource of income and began to chargefifty cents a person for admission tothe grounds (Henning 1992, p. 18).

Three years earlier, Wrightasked Jensen to critique an earlydraft of the school’s first prospectus.In his reply, Jensen inflicts the prin-ciple of jantelov somewhat ruthlessly,and there is a hint that Wright hadinvited Jensen to be an instructor:

I can agree to most of what you say,but you are so prosaic in your deliv-ery that I wonder how you canwrite poetry in stone, on book cov-ers and tell stories about your lifeand the Imperial Hotel. Evidentlyyou have two natures. Your analysesare that of a man analyzing deadand not living things. Do not try toanalyze the philosophy of life. Itneeds no analyses and cannot be—it is life. It is youth, it is growth, nomore and no less. Words, merewords do not change this. It justgives so called learned men andwomen a chance to gossip about it,to write books—words and morewords—lies and more lies.

. . . You will have to makesome changes if I am to have any-thing to do with the school. Thegeneral principles are all right, butthere are a lot of nasty rules andregulations and uniforms and la-bels; and why you want to submitintelligent minds, or whatever youcall it, to the ordinary managementdemanded by the mediocre, I donot understand. (Jensen 1929)

The Clearing. The domestic cata-lyst that prompted Jensen to build his“School of the Soil” was the death ofhis wife, Anne Marie, in 1934 (Figure5). Spirn asserts that Jensen “. . . was

inspired by Wright’s example tofound a school . . .”6 and although bydate of each school’s opening, thisstatement is chronologically correct,Jensen was well ahead of Wright withthe idea and his attempts to imple-

ment it. For over twenty years Jensenhad been making plans and scoutingproperty for The Clearing, a placenamed for the clearing of the mind,like his Ravinia studio. Prior to hispurchase of the Ellison Bay propertyin 1919 for family vacations, Jensensent out apprentices from his Raviniastudio to find a site for his school,“. . . a place where rural life bordered

Russell 147

Figure 5. Mr. and Mrs. Jensen, ca. 1930. Courtesy of The Clearing.

on the wilderness . . . an outpost fac-ing the setting sun for there was thehope of tomorrow” (Fulkerson andCorson 1972, p. 13). Fulkerson wasnineteen years old in 1924 when sheinterviewed with Jensen for a job assecretary at his Ravinia studio. Sherecalled that he spent about ten min-utes telling her what her dutieswould be, and then a few hours pas-sionately describing ideas for hisschool (Fulkerson 1970).

Jensen’s trips into the Midwest-ern countryside to lead the Friendsof Our Native Landscape7 resulted inseveral schemes to preserve the ruraland wild landscapes, including a con-siderable amount of energy focusedon the dunes of Lake Michigan. Inthe early 1900s, a group of people inthe Chicago area who enjoyed Satur-day outings into the countrysideeventually got themselves organizedinto the Prairie Club, electing theirfirst president in 1911. Jensen wastheir director from 1911 to 1914,their president in 1914, and is cred-ited with giving the club its name(Doeserich 1941, p. 7). In his associa-tion with this group, he attemptedtwice to develop two schools in theIndiana dunes, one intended to bean outdoor laboratory for ChicagoUniversity, and the other intended tobe a school for forestry, landscaping,and market gardening. Eventuallythe activism of Jensen and the PrairieClub would see this area designatedas the Indiana Dunes State Park, butthe early efforts to have his ownschool there never found the fund-ing to begin.

The constant turbulence ofJensen’s practice in Chicago andAnne Marie’s death inspired hisrestorative December trip to Califor-nia to visit family. While in the west,he visited the temporary camp of theWrights in Arizona where the Broad-acre City model was being built.8 In afew years, this area of Arizona wouldbecome the winter home of the Fel-lowship, called Taliesin West. Thiswas not Jensen’s only visit, and hisparticipation in the Taliesin Fellow-ship was enthusiastically noted intheir weekly newspaper column “AtTaliesin.” This entry describes oneapprentice’s impression of Jensenthat December of 1934:

Despite the unceasing flow of en-ergy that manifests itself in humanlives there is one energy, that cos-mic spark, that the Universal Spiritreserves for great men. Two suchgreat men have just met at Tal-iesin—our master, Frank LloydWright, and the poetic naturalist,Jens Jensen. With different wordsthese two strong men sing a free-dom song for the beauty of Amer-ica. We apprentices are at Taliesinto build our master’s song into ourlives. Jens Jensen offered to ourscore a new theme to aid in thebuilding. This Dane, with all thestrength of his powerful vitality, istrying to help Americans be Ameri-cans by conserving their regionalfoliage and intelligently replantingwhere men have scarred the land-scape . . . His experiences are tothe listener as fresh as ice crystalson pine boughs. (Henning 1992,p.94)

A column in March of 1935 in-dicates that Jensen had been to Ari-zona again, and gives an account ofthe affection and admiration of theFellowship (Figure 6):

Jens Jensen, a true friend of theFellowship, surprised us with hisunexpected visit Tuesday night. We climbed a San Tan peak to-gether and listened to his inspira-tional words. Jensen and thesaguaro, their strength and charac-ter, the principle of their structuregave us cause to think, the desertbreeze sweeping across our faces.He left us against our will Thurs-day morning and disappeared inthe cottonwoods on his way to LosAngeles. The desert—each flower,each plant—will always bring himback to us. (Henning 1992, p. 118)

In Arizona and in Wisconsin,Jensen participated in the lively activ-ities of the Taliesin Fellowship. Heobserved its function as a commu-nity, working and living and playingtogether, and despite the financialhurdles, they seemed to be enjoyingthe realization of a unique educa-tion, and this must have given himthe belief (but not the idea) that hisown school could thrive as well. Fulk-

erson (1970) relates that if not for hiswife’s reluctance to live in DoorCounty, and then her illness, Jensenwould have given up his practice andmoved to Ellison Bay to start hisschool much sooner. Upon his re-turn from the west, Jensen burst intothe Ravinia studio proclaiming,“When the snow goes and the frost isout of the ground I will be goingnorth to build The Clearing. I havedelayed far too long. The need forsuch an example is becoming moreacute, and one of these days I shallbe an old man.” Mertha Fulkersonreminds us, “Mr. Jensen was then sev-enty five” (Fulkerson and Corson1972, p. 14).

Surviving Depression and WarFor years, Jensen had been

“carrying his practice under his hat,”and although he had a few projectsgoing he would have to rely heavilyon donations from wealthy clients tobuild his school because he had onlya modest retirement annuity fromthe Chicago Parks system as a regularincome (Eaton 1964, p. 211). Heused this annuity to improve and win-terize the vacation buildings alreadyexisting at The Clearing and hadnothing to spare for the constructionof facilities for a school. In the throesof the Depression, and then duringthe depravations of World War II,both Wright and Jensen solicitedfunds from their friends and clientsfor their schools. In Jensen’s lettersto Babson, Ford, and others, hemakes it clear to them that it is theirresponsibility to support The Clear-ing for the sake of America’s youth.In their replies, they commit to giv-ing supplies or equipment, but statethat no money would be given unlessit could be tax-deductible (Stern1938).9 As a result, Jensen incorpo-rated The Clearing and formed aBoard of Directors, then successfullypursued non-profit status for hisschool. After this, his wealthierclients gave him sums that must haveseemed enormous at that time, from$500 to $11,000 (Fulkerson and Cor-son 1972, p. 27).

Following Jensen’s example,Wright applied for non-profit status

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for Taliesin, and although he spent agood deal of time and energy on thiseffort he was never successful (Sam-mond 1955).10 Jensen was able to ac-quire non-profit status by making astrong case for having no incomefrom private practice by the labor ofhis students. Although the income

from his commissions was quite mea-ger, Wright could make no suchclaims, nor would he relinquish con-trol to an incorporated board asJensen had done.11

PedagogyEventually Wright achieved an-

other sort of formal recognition forTaliesin in the form of applying foraccredited degree status as a Schoolof Architecture.12 It is unlikely thatJensen ever entertained this idea forThe Clearing. He preferred to reachfor a broader student body, not nec-essarily intending to produce trainedlandscape architects, but rather seek-ing anyone from the city who wantedto learn about the native landscape.Although both Taliesin and TheClearing were conceived as commu-nities of learning, a fundamentaldifference in teaching approachesexisted. At Taliesin, there were“apprentices,” and at The Clearingthere were “students.” All shared inthe construction and chores of theirschools, but the impression one getsis that manual labor at Taliesin keptthe apprentices humble, whereas atThe Clearing it was a method oflearning intended to replace, notsupplement the directives of a Mas-ter. This author does not intend tosuggest that Wright’s Taliesin was asweatshop, for like Jensen, he had agreat paternal affection for his ap-prentices. Both men were generouswhen neither could afford to be.They often waived tuition for stu-dents in need, and during World WarII, students who arrived without theirration coupons were not turnedaway. Later, they welcomed veteranswith or without the support of the GIBill.13 According to Leonard K.Eaton:

Jensen’s school was entirelylacking in the exploitative elementswhich were so apparent at Taliesin. . . Both Wright and Jensen be-lieved in the value of manual labor,but with Jensen its primary signifi-cance was the physical and spiritualcontact which it provided with theearth . . . Wright, in contrast, evi-dently believed in manual labor asa disciplinary measure. It helped toinduce a proper humility in the stu-dent. (Eaton 1964, p. 218)

Further study may prove thatWright and Jensen founded schoolsprimarily because of their dreamsand ideals, but also because in theirdire financial circumstances, throughtuition the apprentices or students

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Figure 6. Jens Jensen and a saguaro near the future site of Taliesin West in 1935. Photo byCornelia Brierly, a Taliesin Fellow. Courtesy of the Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation.

who arrived from all over the worldto work for them would have to paythem, not vice versa. Gill describesWright’s motives:

The nerve-wracking difficulty of liv-ing beyond one’s means had beeneased for him by his simply and ex-quisitely having no more need ofmeans; a small army of robustyoung folk would serve him nightand day, paying him a considerablesum for the privilege of being inhis presence whenever he felt in-clined to let them enter it. He madeno pretext of being a teacher;rather, he was an example, whoseusefulness to them had but oneundeniable defect: he was a geniusand as such by definition inimit-able. (Gill 1987, p. 330) The Fel-lowship came into existence be-cause, to put it crudely, there wasno other way for Wright to turnTaliesin into the grand country es-tate that he had always envisagedits being and because there was noother way for him to carry on thepractice of architecture in the re-mote countryside, where drafts-men, secretarial help, and the likewere hard to come by. The samereasons apply still more emphati-cally to Taliesin West, which at thetime of its founding, in the latethirties, was even more difficult toget to than Taliesin North. (Gill1987, p. 333)

Nothing in the Jensen/Wrightcorrespondence suggests that theirschools served any purpose otherthan the embodiment of their ideals,but one must look beyond the senti-ment of these utopian attempts tothe realities of Jensen’s and Wright’scircumstances. Jensen also livedlargely, but not beyond his means orwith flamboyance, and he sufferedno ambition for The Clearing to be-come a “grand country estate.” Hewas, nonetheless, hard-pressed formoney and he needed assistants tomanage his projects while he wroteand lectured. It is perhaps in thislight that Jensen and Wright foundthe most beneficial mutual support:to each other, and to the world ob-serving, their motives were pure ofheart and mind, despite the realitiesthey rarely acknowledged.

Wright kept his apprenticesclose in an almost cult-like isolation,with apprentices leaving the Fellow-

ship only to promote the BroadacreCity model or to attend the construc-tion of other Wright projects. A few,like Paolo Soleri, left him to advancethe premise of Organic Architectureon their own terms. Jensen referredsome of his students and acquain-tances to Wright’s Fellowship, includ-ing Alice Drought’s brother Jimmy,and Alfred Caldwell. Caldwell joinedthe Fellowship briefly in 1930. Ac-cording to Jensen, in letters to AliceDrought:

I had a letter from Pittsburg [sic]this morning, from Caldwell. Twoweeks was enough for him at FrankLloyd Wright’s. I had given him allsummer, but I guessed wrong.(Jensen 1930c)

Really, I don’t blame him fornot sticking it out—I don’t say thatas disparaging to Mr. Wright at all,although there are some things Iknow that are better not commit-ted on paper. (Jensen 1930d)

Because he worked for bothMasters, and was apparently highlyregarded by them, Caldwell’s recol-lections are an important view oftheir influence on the people whocame into their circles.14 When askedwhy he left Taliesin, Caldwell statedthat there was no food or money forpay, the work of the apprentices wasterrible, and he missed his wife, whohad refused to live in the same housewith Wright because of his reputa-tion. He also stated that although headmired and respected Wright, henever went back to see him (Wolpertand Berndtson 1992).15 He sentWright a letter two years after hisdeparture, which describes a morethoughtful rationale for leavingTaliesin:

Dear Frank Lloyd Wright—May I come up to see you at Tal-iesin some time next month? Myrequest is meager. I only wish tospend one day to talk to you a shorttime or as long as you are inclined.

Silence is strong:I left Taliesin because you

were greater than I supposed. I saythis without ornament but it is inmy heart. It is clean and true.

It is the gap that creates; aspecies of ignorance that creates.Let me have only a quick look atthe giant. Let me observe onlyroughly the shape of his club. Ishall go away to the next mountainand try my strength. I shall cursemyself perhaps for not remember-ing in which hand he held his club.But my ignorance shall be my salva-tion. I shall end up by holding myclub in my best hand—the handmost natural to me. Did HoraceTrumbel write another Leaves ofGrass?

So much for the incident ofmy leaving—

I must hold myself in. But lis-ten oh cube maker, form-finder,trail-driver! I do not praise youhalf-measure. I do not first tip myhat to Louis Sullivan before I payyou a pretty compliment. I havecalculated close and I know whereyou stand. I know your signifi-cance. Let Oswald Spengler go toOak Park, to Tokio [sic] and Cali-fornia and then come back andwrite his book over again. (Cald-well 1932)16

Jensen did not keep his stu-dents close; he threw his studentsinto local and regional conservationcampaigns, which converted theminto advocates for the native land-scape. When they left Jensen, as heintended they should, he was notconcerned if they called themselveslandscape architects, only that theydid not presume to undertake land-scape design or artistry as he prac-ticed it without first understandingtheir responsibility as advocates. Inthe Danish Folk School’s value sys-tem, “. . . the prime outcome is per-sonal growth and development in acollective environment,” not a voca-tional, utilitarian certification (Leslie1995). When a prospective studentasked Jensen if he could guaranteethat after study at The Clearing hewould get a job, Jensen respondedthat after six months with him, hewouldn’t think to ask such a questionagain (Eaton 1964, p. 219). Jensen’slengthy prospectus for The Clearing,revised and reprinted several times,clearly reiterated Folk School valueswith an emphasis on the develop-ment of the individual’s appreciationof art, nature, and the American cul-ture (Figure 7).

150 Landscape Journal

Jensen’s education in Denmarkwas in the Danish Folk School tradi-tion, advocated by the theologian,historian, poet, and nationalist Nico-lai F.S. Grundtvig. This system empha-sized communal living, cooperation,and the preservation of the Danishculture that was being oppressed bythe Prussian presence of the 1830s.Students of the Folk School devisedtheir own curricula and “learned todo by doing,” 17 depending not onbooks and professors of specializedexpertise, but on det levende ord, “theliving word” (Leslie 1995), an expres-sion often used by Jensen when hewrote of The Clearing:

It is the living word that isthe great intercourse betweenmankind—much more so than thewritten word, and whether this liv-ing word is spoken by the master ofthe art or whether by the student inthe debates, it has lasting power.18

The goal of a Folk School edu-cation was not the pursuit of “ab-stract knowledge and of classical wis-dom,” focusing instead on the“immediate and the experiential,” inorder to reach a state of livoplysning,or “enlightenment for life” (Leslie1995). When Jensen started The

Clearing, there were already a fewfolk schools in America that in-tended to deliberately reproduce theoriginal Danish model, but Jensenbelieved the model should beadapted to an American spirit. Hefollowed the basic routine of a FolkSchool’s daily schedule, especiallywith the presentation of a “Thoughtfor the Day” at breakfast, but he lim-ited his curriculum to the study ofnature, art, and the humanities in ageneral way, depending on visitinginstructors like the Saarinens to ex-pand his own teaching (Figure 8).19

Wright credited his inspirationfor design and his pedagogy to theJapanese prints he collected, whichhe associated with his early child-hood and his education in one of thecountry’s first American versions ofFroebel’s kindergarten, and hismother was self-taught in Froebel’stechnique, as well (Pfeiffer 1987).Like the Folk Schools, the kinder-gartens focused on flexibility in thecurriculum, with direction fromwomen instructors using Froebel’sGifts, simple geometric objects de-

rived from abstracted natural formswhich could be manipulated to de-velop coordination, recognition, andcreativity (Hughes 1900, p. 3).20

Froebel’s system was based onthe development of the child as earlyas possible to direct their develop-ment into citizens who would revereGod and recognize Him in nature,hence the term kindergarten, “chil-dren in” or “children from the gar-den.” Wright’s enrollment frequentlyincluded college graduates andpeople with mature experience ofthe world; nonetheless, their appren-ticeship began with derivations ofFroebel’s approach to child develop-ment, learning to manipulate anddraft the “cosmic, geometric ele-ments” (Pfeiffer 1987) as the under-lying foundation of Organic Archi-tecture, eventually advancing to themanipulation of the materials foundin nature.

Had it not been for his suspi-cion of all things German (Eaton1964, p. 8),21 Jensen might have ad-mitted that much of Froebel’s philos-ophy complemented that of the Dan-ish Folk School. Froebel’s doctrineapplied to Jensen’s pedagogy as wellas his design philosophy, in particu-lar the doctrine of “correspondences,or the analogy everywhere subsistingbetween spirit and body,” the schemeof resultant “connections which runthroughout the world,” and the doc-trine of Gliedganzes or “member-whole, that the whole world works ineach part,” that the “character of theorganized whole depends on the de-velopment of its individual elements”(Kilpatrick 1916, p. 16). Jensen maynever have studied Froebel or histechniques, but Grundtvig is one ofmany authors to whom Wright givescredit in his autobiography, andFroebel is not listed (Gill 1987,p. 324).

War and ResignationAs both The Clearing and Tal-

iesin grew and became established,in both their facilities and their en-rollments, the friendship of Wrightand Jensen was strained by their busylives and ultimately by Jensen’s beliefthat Wright’s avid collection of Japan-ese artifacts and prints gave an orien-tal aura to the American spirit of

Russell 151

Figure 7. Jensen in one of the council rings at The Clearing, circa 1945. The council ringepitomizes Jensen’s pedagogy: in a circle, no one sits at the head and all people are equal.Courtesy of The Clearing.

Wright’s designs. Jensen was quite vo-cal in his opinion of the Japanese andtheir manipulation of Nature, andin a 1937 letter to a German editorhe wrote:

Frank Lloyd Wright is a dear friendof mine, and a great architect, butoriental, and here we part. Whenthe last Anglo Saxon has gone tohis forefathers, the soul of FrankLloyd Wright will halloo over hisgrave. (Eaton 1964, p. 149)

In the early 1940s, with thecountry at war, Wright’s longstandingdisgust with the classical model ofmemorial architecture in Washing-ton, D.C. and his concern for the res-olution of the American conflict withtwo cultures he revered, the Germanand the Japanese, prompted him todistribute the Broadacre City Peti-tion.22 The petition asked the Ameri-can government to endorse and sup-port Wright’s development of theBroadacre City Model:

We, the undersigned, re-spectfully ask that the Administra-tion of our Government authorizeFrank Lloyd Wright to continuethe search for Democratic FORMas the basis for a true capitalistic so-ciety now known as Broadacre City.We believe that work should imme-diately be declared a worthy na-tional objective and the necessaryways and means freely granted himto make such plans, models, anddrawings as will enable our citizensand other peoples to comprehendthe basic ideas the plans, models,and drawings represent and whichwithout political bias or influenceswill be invaluable to our peoplewhen peace is being considered.(Gill 1987, p. 416)

The petition was mailed to the WhiteHouse with hundreds of signatures;Buckminster Fuller’s, John Dewey’s,Georgia O’Keefe’s, Albert Einstein’sand many other notable signaturesappeared on the petition, but Jen-sen’s did not. According to MerthaFulkerson (1970), when Jensen re-ceived his copy of the Petition, hewrote, “Go to Hell” on it and mailedit back to Wright,23 a gesture thatmarked the end of their friendship,but not their correspondence.

Like many legends, this dra-matic story persists in the Jensen lore

152 Landscape Journal

Figure 8. Jensen outside the Schoolhouse at the Clearing, circa 1945. The foregroundgarden was the quarry for the building’s stone. Two Chicago architects, Hugh Gardenand John S. Van Bergen (who once worked for Wright) advised Jensen in the design ofthe Schoolhouse. Courtesy of The Clearing.

as evidence of the end of Jensen’sfriendship with Wright. What Fulker-son failed to mention was that Jensenwrote a brief letter in response to thepetition. On February 12, 1943 shetyped Jensen’s second-to-last letter toWright:

Dear Frank: My viewpoint of lifeand its intellectual functioning willnot permit me to sign your peti-tion. In minor things we can agree,but there are supreme qualities inthe long chain of human endeavorwhere we completely disagree. Yearsof close contact with the soil haveguided my viewpoint in what con-stitutes our real and true purposeon this earth.

To explain my views in detailcan further nothing, as at your age,your goal is set, so all I can say isgood luck.

Kindest regards, Jens Jensen(Jensen 1943a)

Like the pot calling the kettleblack, Wright’s response to Jensentakes a bitter tone:

Dear Jens, You dear old PrimaDonna—I don’t know whether youexaggerate your own sense of your-self or exaggerate my sense of my-self. It doesn’t much matter eitherway. But I think you would be inter-ested to see how a minority report,such as I might bring in with my ex-perience in the study of structuralForm as interpretation of nature,would compare with yours, youwho imitate nature.

Yes, our points of view di-verge. But that wouldn’t preventme from helping you get a job youwanted to do. You are a realisticlandscapist. I am an abstractionistseeking the pattern behind the re-alism—the interior structure in-stead of the comparatively superfi-cial exterior effects you delight in.In other words I am a builder. Youare an effectivist using nature’s ob-jects to make your effects.

The matter is unimportantexcept that I should think a manlike you who has lived as long asyou have (in times past cribbingsome of my “patterns” to decorateyour pictures) would be curious tosee what the other fellow’s view-point could reach. I find that I canbe interested in that with which Isupremely disagree, and I continu-ally learn from my opposites.

This is not to ask you to signmy appeal for a job to help makethe world a better world to live inbut to sympathize with a man towhom age has not brought toler-ance and vision but instead animusand opinion—which he valuesabove discovery and friendship.(Wright 1943)

One might wonder, if AlbertEinstein had refused to sign the peti-tion, would he have received a letterwhich insulted his character, his age,his work, and claimed that the theoryof relativity was a copy of Wright’s“patterns?” As best can be deter-mined, Jens Jensen had the last wordin March of 1943, at least in writing:

Dear FrankI did not think I could ever get youto write me a letter. But here it is!Thanks for the compliments. Youare still the same Frank, although Ifear a little less poetic. (Jensen1943b)

Jensen’s fundamental rejectionof the Broadacre City Model as thedemocratic ideal may have beenfounded in his belief that “the carhas done much to destroy the finerfeelings in man, and in the tomorrowit will have to keep its place,”24 a sen-timent which is ironic, given Jensen’srelationship with Henry Ford as cli-ent and benefactor, but squarely inopposition to the futuristic accom-modations of the automobile in theBroadacre City plans. Or the rejec-tion may have been the result of alifelong abhorrence for militaristic,dictated planning, an impressionmade on Jensen when he was forcedto serve in the Prussian ImperialGuard. The Broadacre City Model, ifit had been adopted, would have dis-couraged more original or individu-alized plans from subsequent design-ers and citizens. These beliefs andthe Danish jantelov may have com-bined in the ultimate rejection, butin any case, Jensen’s refusal to signthe petition marked the end of hissupport for Wright and his resigna-tion from their friendship. Although

they may have continued to commu-nicate in some other way, the lettersended with this exchange, if the me-ticulous records of the Frank LloydWright Foundation are any indi-cation. By this time the 83-year-oldlandscape artist might have felt it wastime to stop holding the hand of a76-year-old architect. Frank LloydWright surely felt the silence of oneof his most steadfast and tolerantfriends, Jens Jensen.

AcknowledgementsEarly portions of this work were presentedat The Clearing Institute, CELA 1997, andCELA/ASLA 1999. The author is grateful tothe gracious staff of the Frank Lloyd WrightFoundation, specifically Margo Stipe, IndiraBerndtson, Bruce Brooks Pfeiffer, and Geron-imo. The author thanks Michael Stieber andCarol Doty (formerly) of Morton Arboretum,and the staff of The Clearing. The author owesmuch to her Clearing buddies and generouscritics Gene DeTurk, Bill Tishler, and BobGrese for many years of support and inspira-tion, and she wishes to thank two out of threeanonymous reviewers who thoughtfully raisedthe bar (instructions included, some assemblyrequired).

Notes1. The author presumes from Fulkerson’sbook The Story of The Clearing and from the leg-ends of the place that Fulkerson did not ap-prove of Wright or his lifestyle, and she mayhave been reluctant to contribute to their rela-tionship by typing letters to him, or perhapsknowing her opinion, Jensen spared her thechore or himself the asking of it.2. Purtell, Josephine. “Dean of LandscapeArtists at 83 Looking to Future,” MilwaukeeJournal, September 9, 1943.3. Fulkerson and Corson 1972, p. 15: “To thestudio in Ravinia came such notables as theSwedish sculptor Carl Milles, Sherwood An-derson, Eliel Saarinen, Vachel Lindsay, FrankLloyd Wright, Louis Sullivan, the dancer SybilShearer, and singers, players, musicians, com-posers, and other thinkers and doers drawn tothe group that gathered there.”4. Eaton 1964, pp. 220–222, describes the Mar-quette projects (1936) which may have re-sulted in an agreement, tacit or otherwise,that Wright and Jensen would not collaboratein such work again. Grese 1992, pp. 47–48,pp. 200–217 lists the Jensen/Wright collabora-tions.5. Gill 1987, pp. 289–301, describes the desper-ate period of 1924–1928, when Wright’stroubles included the imminent foreclosureon Taliesin for a debt of $43,000, and the

Russell 153

forced sale of his Japanese prints at auction inNew York City. In 1927, a handful of friends,including Mrs. Avery Coonley, formed FrankLloyd Wright, Incorporated to collect andmanage Wright’s commissions, and graduallydischarge Wright’s debts and give him an al-lowance. In May 1928, this corporation boughtTaliesin at auction when Wright’s commissionscould not cover the debts.6. Spirn, Ann Whiston, “Frank Lloyd Wright:Architect of Landscape,” in DeLong 1996.This reference is found in the endnotes ofSpirn’s chapter, p. 168.7. See Grese 1992, pp. 120–136 for an overviewof Jensen’s conservation efforts and his contri-butions to the founding of The Friends of OurNative Landscape and the Prairie Club.8. Eaton 1964, p. 211. Eaton uses the name“Taliesin West” when describing this 1934 trip.However, Pfeiffer and others mention the Ari-zona property was not purchased until 1936,with construction of the permanent buildingsbeginning in 1938, near the temporary campJensen visited. In 1913, the Chicago City Club,when Jensen was their Chair of City Planning,held a competition for the design of a subur-ban community, and Wright did not enter hisdesign, which evolved into the Broadacre City,in the competition, instead choosing to submitthe scheme “hors concours,” as one reviewerput it, or “outside the competition.” Jensenwas on the jury for the competition, and itwould be a dispute over Broadacre City that ul-timately ended their friendship thirty yearslater. For more about Wright’s tireless effortsto promote Broadacre City and its context intheory and city planning of the early twentiethcentury, see Yeomans 1916. See also Arnold1971, pp. 84–86 and Scott 1971, pp. 336–337.9. Jensen’s correspondence of the winter andspring of 1938 (Morton Arboretum), the pe-riod when his Schoolhouse was being built, in-cludes letters similar to Stern’s and the confir-mation of tax-exempt status by Jensen’sattorney. The Clearing is currently a not-for-profit corporation under Section 501(c)(3) ofthe Internal Revenue Code.10. Letter from Frederic Sammond, attorneyfor the Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation, to As-semblyman Warren Grady, Chair of the Taxa-tion Committee, dated May 9, 1955. Sammondunsuccessfully argued the Foundation’s case atthe Wisconsin Supreme Court in 1954, andwrote this letter in support of Bill 328A, whichwould have altered the original legislation re-garding exemption, if it had passed. Other let-ters regarding this failed legislation appear inthe same time period of the collection, FrankLloyd Wright Foundation.11. Jensen formed his Board to do thefundraising and financial chores for him, leav-ing him with time to write, to lecture all overthe country, and to work with his students onthe experimental, experiential grounds of TheClearing. He rarely had money to spare, butwhen he could he bought acreage adjoiningThe Clearing, eventually accumulating about128 acres. Wright may have forfeited non-profit status to protect his vision and control,but Jensen’s distaste for control certainly costhim his vision. Although financial manage-ment and fundraising were the original dutiesof Jensen’s Board, since his death it has

elected not to buy adjoining or nearby proper-ties when they were available, in order to ex-pand the programs needed to generate rev-enues. Instead, the Board has developed TheClearing’s grounds, first with two vacationrental units, and most recently with an officebuilding, named the Jens Jensen Visitor’s Cen-ter, to receive the tourists Jensen despised. TheClearing’s Bylaws (Article I, Section 2, pp. 1–2,April 1987) state: “The land owned and usedby the school must be kept so far as possible inits present state. The portion which is forestmust remain forest and the portion which isclearings of open fields must be left as such.The forest must be left free from man’s inter-vention . . . If in the future the directors con-sider it desirable for the school to increase itscultivated areas, this must be done by the ac-quisition of additional land.”12. “The Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation,”brochure distributed at Taliesin, SpringGreen, Wisconsin, September 1992.13. Jensen and Wright’s earliest brochureslisted sums of about $1,000 per year for tu-ition, and in the 1930s it must have been diffi-cult to realize a steady income from thismoney for either school. The few financialrecords available do not make clear any collec-tion of tuition. When Wright began the Fellow-ship, there were over twenty apprentices en-rolled, which would have been over $20,000 intuition income. Given Wright’s circumstances,and similarly Jensen’s, it is clear they did nothave this amount of money, although whatlittle they could collect would have beenneeded.14. See Domer 1997, pp. 10–13. According toCaldwell (p. 10), Jensen and Wright were notfriends. It is the fundamental premise of thispaper that they were.15. Domer 1997, p. 13 relates that Caldwell didin fact see Wright again, between 1934 and1936.16. The reference to Oswald Spengler comesfrom Spengler’s exhaustive text, The Decline ofthe West, first published in 1926, wherein he in-cludes American architecture of the nine-teenth and twentieth centuries under theheading of “Winter” and “Decline,” and refersto the “Transformation of Music, architecture,and painting into mere craft-arts,” overleaftable, p. 428.17. “Learning by doing” is the phrase used byJensen in the various brochures for The Clear-ing. To “learn to do by doing” is the phraseused by Froebel in his “Educational Laws,”quoted in Froebel’s Laws for All Teachers, byJames L. Hughes, Appleton and Company, NY1900.18. From one of the earliest drafts of Jensen’sprospectus for The Clearing, entitled “Schoolof Landscape Architecture:” Jensen Collectionof the Morton Arboretum, Lisle, Illinois, n.d.,p. 2. Variations of this draft statement appearin the printed editions.19. See Eaton 1964, p. 217. Jensen’s friendshipwith the Saarinens began soon after they immi-grated. Jensen had been training a young ap-

prentice in his office to be his manager at TheClearing. Mertha Fulkerson’s role was sup-posed to be that of weaving instructor, notmanager (as she said in 1970, “he didn’t wanta skirt”) so Jensen sent her to the Saarinens atCranbrook for weaving classes. The apprenticedied, and Jensen did not recruit another to re-place him. Management (and cooking, plumb-ing, housekeeping, etc.) fell to Fulkerson bydefault. Because of her devotion to Jensen andhis ideals, and because of her diligence tokeep the place open, The Clearing is still aschool, with weeklong classes from June to Oc-tober in nature, art, and the humanities.20. See also Wiggin and Smith, 1897, pp. 189–192.21. See also see Egan and Tishler 1999, pp. 11–29 for an understanding of Jensen and his po-sition on Germany.22. Eaton 1964, p. 222 gives another dimen-sion to the story: “. . . Wright sought Jensen’said in his effort to be appointed architect-in-chief for the State Department’s building pro-gram. Though Jensen still admired Wright’sarchitectural talents enormously, he did notbelieve that his selection would be good publicpolicy and therefore refused his support.”23. This particular piece of correspondence isnot in the Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation’scollection of letters from Jensen to Wright.24. Jensen 1990, p. 92. In A Greater West ParkSystem, (1920, p. 20), Jensen states, “A betterarchitectural and livable city cannot bebrought about by grand plans that are insti-gated from above and thrust upon the peoplefrom without; it must come from within andmust grow out of the soul of the people them-selves.” For more on Jensen’s ideal of the city,see Egan and Tishler and their excellentoverview of writing by and about Jensen,pp. 11–12.

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