Pioneer Information
An early female practitioner of landscape architecture, Bullard first began work in the profession as an assistant to her father. Oliver Bullard worked alongside Frederick Law Olmsted, Sr. while with the U.S. Sanitary Commission and served as Bridgeport, Connecticut’s Supervisor of Parks until his death in 1890. Olmsted, Sr. recommended Bullard to replace her father as Supervisor of Parks, and although she was promised the position she was later passed over for a male successor. An 1892 issue of Garden and Forest chastised the Park Commission for its decision. Instead, Bullard went into practice on her own doing residential design work and collaborating on a least one occasion with the Olmsted firm on a job for Smith College in Northampton, Massachusetts. Few if any of her designs remain today.
The second female member of the American Society of Landscape Architects, Bullard was made a Fellow of the Society in 1899, only one year after the organization was founded. She was an active participant in both the ASLA and the American Park and Outdoor Art Association.
