Author Series: Dr. Bruce Stephenson, “Cultivating the Brotherhood of Man in Nature,” John Nolen’s Vision of a New South

Author Series: Dr. Bruce Stephenson

“Cultivating the Brotherhood of Man in Nature”

John Nolen’s Vision of a New South

Friday, February 20, 2026 at 6 PM

Dr. Bruce Stephenson will discuss his new research assessing Nolen’s pathbreaking plans to cross racial boundaries and create a New South.  His 1920s plans for St. Petersburg and Venice highlighted the effort initiated, in 1907, in his first city plan for Roanoke, Virginia.  These plans will be contrasted to the New South Thomas Dixon pictured in the novel The Clansman and the film Birth of a Nation. Nolen attended the play, The Clansman, and met Dixon on his first public commission in Charlotte, North Carolina.

Bruce Stephenson is dedicated to the art of city planning. The former Pinellas County land use planner earned a PhD at Emory University and wrote a dissertation that unveiled John Nolen’s 1923 plan for St. Petersburg, Florida’s first comprehensive city plan. Nolen, a disciple of Fredrick Law Olmsted, designed a timeless blueprint to promote “the brotherhood of man in nature” that centered Stephenson's first book, Visions of Eden. His follow up work, John Nolen: Landscape Architect and City Planner, earned the JB Jackson book award. 

Stephenson coupled a desire to live without a car, and service on sustainability committees in Orlando and Portland to write, Portland’s Good Life: Sustainability and Hope in an American City. He is completing his latest book, The Clansman and the City Plan: Thomas Dixon and John Nolen’s Competing Visions for a Faustian Nation, and recently partnered with Dover Kohl on the Seaboard Plan for Venice, Florida, a Nolen designed new town listed on the National Register.

Stephenson is the recipient of the John Nolen Medal, Graham Frey Award, and Addison Mizner Medal.

Space is limited; reservations are required.