Description
Book SynopsisAn exploration of the hidden history of camping in American life that connects a familiar recreational pastime to camps for functional needs and political purposes.Camping appears to be a simple proposition, a time-honored way of getting away from it all. Pack up the car and hit the road in search of a shady spot in the great outdoors. For a modest fee, reserve the basic infrastructure--a picnic table, a parking spot, and a place to build a fire. Pitch the tent and unroll the sleeping bags. Sit under the stars with friends or family and roast some marshmallows. This book reveals that, for all its appeal, the simplicity of camping is deceptive, its history and meanings far from obvious.Why do some Americans find pleasure in sleeping outside, particularly when so many others, past and present, have had to do so for reasons other than recreation? Never only a vacation choice, camping has been something people do out of dire necessity and as a tactic of political protest. Yet the dominant interpretation of camping as a modern recreational ideal has obscured the connections to these other roles. A closer look at the history of camping since the Civil War reveals a deeper significance of this American tradition and its links to core beliefs about nature and national belonging. Camping Grounds rediscovers unexpected and interwoven histories of sleeping outside. It uses extensive research to trace surprising links between veterans, tramps, John Muir, African American freedpeople, Indian communities, and early leisure campers in the nineteenth century; tin-can tourists, federal campground designers, Depression-era transients, family campers, backpacking enthusiasts, and political activists in the twentieth century; and the crisis of the unsheltered and the tent-based Occupy Movement in the twenty-first. These entwined stories show how Americans camp to claim a place in the American republic and why the outdoors is critical to how we relate to nature, the nation, and each other.
Trade ReviewYoung deserves praise for creating fertile ground for historians of the environment, race, class, and gender to further complicate the narrative of camping in North America, as well as demonstrating how others can critically engage with conceptions of government responsibility and public nature. * Jessica M. DeWitt, Western History Quarterly *
A rich and compelling book that follows two intersecting paths through the history of camping. The most obvious path is that of recreational camping....The second path is the history of protest camping, from Civil War veterans to Occupy protesters.... While Camping Grounds centers on the practices of camping, as recreation and protest, it situates this analysis in the broader overarching concept of 'public nature.'...[Its] concern, one with implications for the future, is that other forms of camping-such as a mode of protest or as a matter of necessity-are delegitimized, as a market-based recreational ethos crowds out the potential for camping to yield broader public goods....This concept of public nature will serve historians well as they wrestle with how we use, govern, and consume nature to reflect, shore up, and challenge hierarchies of power in the United States. * James Morton Turner, Journal of American History *
Recreational camping and political camping, two voluntary but contrasting activities, and functional camping, an involuntary activity, are the three forms of American camping explored in this excellent, well-researched book. Most camping scholarship...concentrates on the first of the three forms while neglecting the other two. Young's...demonstration of the interrelatedness of and shaping interactions between the three forms makes it exceptionally revealing and valuable....Young convincingly demonstrates that camping today is complicated, contains multiple meanings, and can be both a highly popular form of leisure and the justification for an arrest by law enforcement. In addition to being a revealing analysis, Camping Grounds is an engaging narrative....I strongly recommend Camping Grounds to readers who wish to better understand how America came to include an everyday activity that is both praised and condemned, often by the same people. * Terence Young, H-Environment *
This is a magnificent study of camping in the US, from the mid-19th century to 2019. Camping has had significantly different meanings at different times in US history, and Young explores three different eras. Early camping was primarily a way of sheltering while traveling, or while in a state of military transition, with emphasis on organizing people....Camping as a choice and pastime emerged later and played a role in changing views of class and race in the US....In the late 19th century, camping became an alternative to resort vacations, taking on social and economic implications. The camping equipment industry and planned campgrounds emerged. The popularity of camping in the second half of the 20th century created environmental and institutional problems, resulting in a wilderness ethic and economic opportunities....Relevant to social and environmental studies and law....Recommended. Lower-division undergraduates through professionals.
A varied and comprehensive overview of modern camping with ample detail and sociological perspective on the origins of camping and its roles in war, protest, consumerism, and class discrimination. * Zebulin Evelhoch, Library Journal *
Young, an environmental historian, traces "camping" back to the Civil War and explores its implications for social justice and political discourse—beyond its more obvious role as a mere diversional outdoor activity. * Lela Nargi, The Sierra Club *
In Camping Grounds, Phoebe Young presents the surprisingly political history of sleeping outside, in which veterans, vagrants, migrants, recreationists, protestors, bureaucrats, officials, police, and others have fought over the meaning of public nature, with profound implications for American life and the American social compact. Artfully written, creatively researched, a tour de force that will change the way you see your country. * Louis S. Warren, University of California, Davis *
In this brilliant new book, Phoebe Young asks a seemingly simple question: 'What does it mean to camp and why does it matter?' The answer is strikingly complex and in its pursuit Camping Grounds offers a radically inclusive vision of America's public nature and environmental culture. * Char Miller, author of Not So Golden State: Sustainability vs. the California Dream *
Phoebe Young strips the innocence from sleeping under the stars, revealing this quintessential American pastime as a precarious practice — one long bedeviled by class tensions, legal wrangling over the definition of camping, and ever-shifting claims on public nature. * Elizabeth Royte, author of Garbage Land: On the Secret Trail of Trash *
My recommendation?: gather 'round the campfire with a s'more, and read this smart, engaging book. Young exposes the 'simple life' of camping as a complex set of negotiations historically about your environments, your government, your fellow citizens...and yourself. * Jenny Price, Stop Saving the Planet!: An Environmentalist Manifesto *
Table of ContentsAcknowledgments Introduction: Public Nature Part One: 1850s-1880s Ch. 1. Saving the Union Ch. 2. Seeing the Country Part Two: 1890s-1940s Ch. 3. Tramp Style Ch. 4. Campers' Republic Part Three: 1950s-2010s Ch. 5. The Back to Nature Crowd ch. 6. Tents and Public Statements Epilogue: "We MUST Camp" Notes Index
