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American History and Culture Series
Children's Nature: The Rise of the American Summer Camp
For over a century, summer camps have provided many American children's first experience of community beyond their immediate family and neighborhoods. Each summer, children experience the pain of homesickness, learn to swim, and sit around campfires at night.
Children's Nature chronicles the history of the American summer camp, from its invention in the late nineteenth century through its rise in the first four decades of the twentieth century. Leslie Paris investigates how camps came to matter so greatly to so many Americans, while providing a window onto the experiences of the children who attended them and the aspirations of the adults who created them.
Summer camps helped cement the notion of childhood as a time apart, at once protected and playful. Camp leaders promised that campers would be physically and morally invigorated by fresh mountain air, simple food, daily swimming, and group living, and thus better fit for the year to come. But camps were important as well because children delighted in them, helped to shape them, and felt transformed by them. Focusing primarily on the northeast, where camps were first founded and the industry grew most extensively, and drawing on a range of sources including camp films, amateur performances, brochures, oral histories, letters home, industry journals, camp newspapers, and scrapbooks, Children's Nature brings this special and emotionally resonant world to life.
Children's Nature chronicles the history of the American summer camp, from its invention in the late nineteenth century through its rise in the first four decades of the twentieth century. Leslie Paris investigates how camps came to matter so greatly to so many Americans, while providing a window onto the experiences of the children who attended them and the aspirations of the adults who created them.
Summer camps helped cement the notion of childhood as a time apart, at once protected and playful. Camp leaders promised that campers would be physically and morally invigorated by fresh mountain air, simple food, daily swimming, and group living, and thus better fit for the year to come. But camps were important as well because children delighted in them, helped to shape them, and felt transformed by them. Focusing primarily on the northeast, where camps were first founded and the industry grew most extensively, and drawing on a range of sources including camp films, amateur performances, brochures, oral histories, letters home, industry journals, camp newspapers, and scrapbooks, Children's Nature brings this special and emotionally resonant world to life.
364 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2008
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
February 5, 2021
It took me a while to get through this book. Not because it was boring. Far from it. I was researching the history of summer camps pre WWII, and I found myself taking lots and lots of notes. Paris concentrates on the development of the camp movement as a whole, its administrators, and the kids who frequented them. If you're looking for camp experiences post WWII, then this book is not for you.
February 15, 2026
I read this book partially out of interest but mainly as a way to gain some background information on the topic for a magazine article I’ve been working on.
Written by a UBC professor of history, published in 2008, it details the origin, growth and evolution of kids’ summer camps in the USA. Much of it applies to Canada as well, as summer youth camps also grew here, mainly in the east, in the same timeframe. There are some obvious differences, though.
It’s a sociological study as much as it is a history, a study of culture and life in the northeastern US, mainly, from the 1880s up to the early 1940s. The author doesn’t really delve much into what went on with summer camps in the 60s, 70s and beyond. She does touched on it a little bit in the final pages of the book but mostly focusses on subject matter from the turn of the century to the end of World War II.
It’s interesting, but like a lot of books like this, a bit dry at times. It is of an academic nature and 84 of the 364 pages in the book are devoted to footnotes.
If you are interested in the topic, it’s a well-researched book to read.
Written by a UBC professor of history, published in 2008, it details the origin, growth and evolution of kids’ summer camps in the USA. Much of it applies to Canada as well, as summer youth camps also grew here, mainly in the east, in the same timeframe. There are some obvious differences, though.
It’s a sociological study as much as it is a history, a study of culture and life in the northeastern US, mainly, from the 1880s up to the early 1940s. The author doesn’t really delve much into what went on with summer camps in the 60s, 70s and beyond. She does touched on it a little bit in the final pages of the book but mostly focusses on subject matter from the turn of the century to the end of World War II.
It’s interesting, but like a lot of books like this, a bit dry at times. It is of an academic nature and 84 of the 364 pages in the book are devoted to footnotes.
If you are interested in the topic, it’s a well-researched book to read.
Did Not Finish
February 14, 2022DNF after 2.5 chapters. Interesting but it's just dense and not as engaging as I feel like it should be given the content. I've got a lot of library holds built up and I'd rather read other things right now, so I'm returning this one.
March 20, 2023
Leslie Paris I don’t know how you wrote this book but I’m glad you did!!!!!!! So packed with information it boggles the mind.
March 17, 2011
I've long been interested in summer camps, and found this book mostly fascinating as it told the history of how this peculiarly American institution got started. It shows how camps, from the very beginning, have been about tradition married to perpetual change, and how successful a combination that actually is. I do wish there had been more about camps after WWII, but that's not the book's focus, and it was interesting to hear the early history, and marvel at the vast amount of work the author put into this book. It's nice to know that some of the camps which were among the earliest founded, in the mid-late 1800s, are still extant (like YMCA Camp Dudley), but equally sad to realize how many venerable camps have fallen by the wayside after decades of successful summers (Camp Kehonka, almost 80 years). With concerns that my own summer camp, where I was a camper and then a counselor, may not make it many more summers, that's hard to read about!
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews