Description:
The Farm & Wilderness Summer Camps explores how ideals considered progressive in the 1940s and 1950s had to be reconfigured to respond to shifts in culture and society as well as to new understanding of race and ethnicity, social class, gender, and sexual identity through a study of the popular Farm & Wilderness camps. To illustrate this change, Emily Abel and Margaret K. Nelson draw on over forty interviews with former campers, archival materials, and their own memories. This book tells a story of progressive ideals, crisis of leadership, childhood challenges, and social adaptation in the quintessential American summer camp.
Review Quotes: "In this engaging consideration of the Farm and Wilderness camps, the authors use the scholarly tools of their respective disciplines to produce a case-study that is simultaneously deeply respectful and critically analytical. Their willingness to address a range of issues--among them, racial inequality, gender politics, sexual abuse, and the appropriation of Native American culture--make this a must-read, not just for their fellow FW alums, but for anyone committed to seeing summer camps thrive in the 21st century."--Abigail A. Van Slyck "author of A Manufactured Wilderness: Summer Camps and the Shaping of American Youth, 1890-1960"