| Book Review | The Journal of American History, 94.2

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| Book Review | The Journal of American History, 94.2 | The History Cooperative

Book Review

A Manufactured Wilderness: Summer Camps and the Shaping of American Youth, 1890–1960. By Abigail A. Van Slyck. (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2006. xxxviii, 296 pp. $34.95, ISBN 978-0-8166-4876-4.)
The premise for A Manufactured Wilderness is a familiar one, especially among western historians: urbanization and modernization created a sense of crisis in the late nineteenth century, encouraging easterners to look to the West, or at least to untrammeled nature, for salvation. Employing wilderness retreats to instill strong, middle-class values in children is a consistent theme throughout this study, but as Abigail A. Van Slyck demonstrates, changing institutional values among professionals in child development, psychology, and education were physically reinforced through carefully designed summer camp environments.	1
The story of creating happy campers begins in late 1800s, as a corrective to the overcivilized, effeminate influence of late Victorian society: boys needed to escape oppressive adult oversight and learn manly skills. Camp planning and built structures were minimal. The ad hoc placement of tents encouraged independence; diving off rocks into a lake and other unstructured forms of play would develop the kind of solid character necessary for success later in life. That contrived informality and freedom shifted shortly before World War I. New scientific studies on childhood health and behavior led to a military-style camp layout and the addition of permanent structures. Group activities were devised to shape boys and girls into strong, patriotic citizens.	. . .

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