Along with Garrett Eckbo and Dan Kiley, James C. Rose was one of the leaders of the modern movement in American landscape architecture. Born in 1913 in rural Pennsylvania, Rose moved with his family to New York City when he was five years old. Despite never having graduated high school, Rose managed to enroll in architecture courses at Cornell University. A few years later he transferred to Harvard University to study landscape architecture, but was soon expelled for refusing to design landscapes in a Beaux-Arts manner.