The Art of Manliness - #327： Heading Out — A History of Camping

00:00:00.000 Brad McKay here and welcome to another edition of the Art of Manliness podcast.

00:00:18.320 Well, camping is one of America's favorite pastimes.

00:00:21.480 About 50 million Americans head out into the wilderness each year to refresh and reinvigorate

00:00:25.560 themselves.

00:00:26.160 And while it may seem like camping as a recreational activity has always been around, camping as

00:00:29.980 we know it today is actually relatively new.

00:00:32.200 For most of human history, camping is what you did during war or on a hunting or fishing

00:00:35.840 expedition.

00:00:36.500 It wasn't something you just did for the fun of it just in and of itself.

00:00:39.900 So how did camping become a modern pastime?

00:00:42.300 My guest to explore is the answer to this question in his latest book.

00:00:44.680 His name is Terrence Young and his book is entitled Heading Out, A History of American

00:00:48.220 Camping.

00:00:48.840 Terry and I begin our show discussing how camping got its start as an anti-modern revolt after

00:00:53.040 the Civil War and the New England minister who wrote a book that would kickstart the camping

00:00:56.880 craze in America in the 19th century.

00:00:58.520 Terry then shares how businesses responded to the growing number of campers in America

00:01:01.860 by creating and marketing products and goods to make camping easier, and how these products

00:01:06.200 began a debate about which sort of camper is the most authentic kind, a debate that remains

00:01:11.100 ongoing today.

00:01:12.320 We end our conversation talking about the rituals of camping, why all campsites in America

00:01:15.680 look exactly the same or pretty much, and the state of camping in America today.

00:01:19.920 This is a great episode to listen to on your way to a weekend camping trip or when you're

00:01:22.880 dreaming of your next outing on the way to work.

00:01:25.040 After the show's over, check out the show notes at aom.is slash heading out.

00:01:28.380 Terrence Young, welcome to the show.

00:01:34.840 Oh, thank you.

00:01:35.540 It's great to be here.

00:01:36.720 So you wrote a history of one of my all-time favorite activities, camping.

00:01:42.080 And this really, after reading this book, I'm looking at camping now with completely new

00:01:46.860 eyes.

00:01:47.380 Like, I'm looking at campsites differently because I know how, why campsites look the

00:01:51.720 way they do and why there's like the one-way loop and all that thing.

00:01:55.180 But what I found most interesting about this book was that for some reason, I've always

00:01:59.820 thought of camping as sort of this er-recreational activity, right?

00:02:04.100 This sort of thing that humans have always done for fun for a long time, but then when

00:02:08.140 you think about it, it's like, that doesn't make any sense.

00:02:10.860 But so you point out in the book that camping for the sake of camping is actually a relatively

00:02:15.840 new concept.

00:02:16.640 So when did camping become just an activity that people just did for the sake of doing

00:02:21.860 it?

00:02:23.380 Well, as you say, Brett, camping is, in a sense, it's ancient, right?

00:02:27.460 As probably as long as there have been people, people have camped, but they didn't camp for

00:02:32.140 fun.

00:02:32.940 You know, they camped because they had to.

00:02:35.440 The idea of camping, actually, the word comes from the military word campaign.

00:02:40.080 To engage in a campaign, and they had to set up encampments.

00:02:44.740 And so there were camps, you know, like Camp Lejeune or things like this.

00:02:49.920 Camping as a recreational activity in some ways initially came along, at least in America,

00:02:56.020 with hunting and fishing.

00:02:58.520 But hunters and fishers would go out to do that, to hunt and fish.

00:03:02.740 But they had to camp as a kind of, you know, adjunct to hunting and fishing.

00:03:08.360 It's only after the U.S. Civil War ended in 1865 that we start to see people going camping

00:03:16.540 just to camp, that they might hunt and fish.

00:03:20.440 And there were still many people still going hunting and fishing and then had to camp.

00:03:24.940 But this is when we first see this, the appearance of the idea that camping itself is a form of

00:03:29.780 recreation.

00:03:30.320 So, I'm curious, I mean, what was it about post-bellum America, the cultural milieu of

00:03:38.740 it, that made people start camping just for camping's sake?

00:03:43.120 The northern part of the country boomed.

00:03:46.720 The economy boomed, and industry was growing.

00:03:50.960 And the cities like New York, Boston, Hartford, Philadelphia, they were growing very rapidly in

00:03:58.600 population and getting much larger.

00:04:01.400 Along with this industrialization and urbanization of America, came a lot of regulation, a lot of

00:04:09.560 pollution, noise, smoke, things like this, a lot of crowding, a lot of strangers that people

00:04:19.280 didn't know.

00:04:20.340 And this was all new to Americans.

00:04:24.280 There had been cities like New York before the Civil War, but they'd largely been relatively

00:04:30.120 small.

00:04:30.980 And the vast majority of Americans had lived in small towns and on farms and, you know,

00:04:35.740 tiny settlements and stuff.

00:04:37.860 And this new experience caused a sort of, I would say, identity crisis, if you will, amongst

00:04:44.440 people who weren't sure, you know, who am I in a way?

00:04:48.400 And is this still America?

00:04:51.020 And one of the things amongst many that they turned to was camping.

00:04:56.820 Camping going back with this kind of romantic idea of nature as relief, as whatever solution,

00:05:04.860 anodyne to their sense of like, am I really in the right place being here in the city?

00:05:10.180 They didn't want to leave the city because that's where the jobs were.

00:05:12.820 That's where the money was.

00:05:14.480 But they wanted some relief from the city.

00:05:17.780 And camping seemed to fill the bill.

00:05:20.320 Right.

00:05:20.400 So in a way, it was sort of an anti-modern revolt in a sort of, you know.

00:05:24.540 Yes.

00:05:24.980 But yeah, you said this was among other things.

00:05:26.980 This was sort of, besides camping, I know during this same period, people got really into

00:05:32.080 arts and crafts.

00:05:33.000 It's like when the arts and crafts movement started in Europe and America and people were

00:05:37.160 all about, I'm going to build things with my hands.

00:05:39.860 And rustic things are great things because, you know, it's not tainted by urbanization

00:05:45.780 or technology.

00:05:47.120 Mm-hmm.

00:05:47.840 Yeah, that's right.

00:05:48.860 And we do, you know, one of the things, one of the reasons the arts and crafts movement

00:05:53.760 rose was because people were increasingly in jobs where they didn't make anything from

00:06:00.040 beginning to end.

00:06:00.880 Right.

00:06:01.760 They, whatever, made a part that was assembled into something larger.

00:06:06.920 And so they didn't necessarily see completion to their actions.

00:06:12.020 And they came to, they came enamored of this idea of doing things themselves and having control

00:06:19.300 and finishing something.

00:06:21.080 And camping's a part of that whole larger movement.

00:06:23.800 Right.

00:06:23.920 So, one of the individuals, most influential individuals in the sort of kick-starting the

00:06:29.400 camping movement in America, never heard of this guy, but he's a pretty interesting

00:06:33.440 character.

00:06:34.860 His name is William H.H.

00:06:36.080 Murray.

00:06:37.040 What was it about his book that he wrote?

00:06:38.480 It's called Adventures in the Wilderness that helped kick-start the camping craze.

00:06:42.680 Well, Murray, for a little background on him, Murray was a Congregationalist minister from

00:06:48.120 Boston.

00:06:48.580 He was actually the head of the Park Street Church, which is probably the most significant

00:06:54.840 or was the most significant congregational church in America.

00:06:58.500 He was a graduate of Yale.

00:07:00.080 He was a very educated gentleman.

00:07:02.180 He was a very enthusiastic outdoorsman.

00:07:04.900 He especially loved canoeing.

00:07:07.120 And the thing about his book is, his book is, I think, kicks off camping for a number of

00:07:13.380 reasons.

00:07:13.940 One, it's accessible.

00:07:15.420 It's still in print.

00:07:16.840 It's well-written.

00:07:18.400 He's funny.

00:07:19.580 He's sort of self-reflectively funny.

00:07:22.460 But most importantly, unlike anybody before him, he basically came right out and flatly

00:07:28.180 said, well, how do you camp?

00:07:30.100 He told people how to do it.

00:07:31.820 People, writers before him hadn't really said that.

00:07:34.180 They just assumed everyone knew how.

00:07:36.460 And of course, most urban people in 1869, when Adventures in the Wilderness was published,

00:07:42.640 most urban people, they didn't have any idea about how to go camping into the wild.

00:07:46.540 They lived in the city.

00:07:48.040 His book told them how.

00:07:49.460 You know, you needed to go here, do that.

00:07:51.280 He told them where to go into the Adirondacks in particular.

00:07:56.660 And he told them why.

00:07:58.140 And I think that why was also very important, because what he did was he addressed the anxieties

00:08:05.980 that urban people in the post-Civil War era were feeling.

00:08:11.200 You know, he came right out and said, yes, the reason you don't feel good is you work in

00:08:16.000 an office, it's crowded, your boss is a pain, these sorts of things.

00:08:21.220 And he was the first one to come right out and say it.

00:08:23.660 And he was a minister saying this.

00:08:25.700 And I think it gave him a lot of clout, you know, and, you know, it's a combination of

00:08:32.620 a well-written book, useful book, informative book, and one that explained why you'd want

00:08:39.100 to go camping.

00:08:39.780 And people took him at his word and immediately took off and started camping.

00:08:44.520 And how much of an impact did this book have?

00:08:46.360 Like, how many people started camping because of him?

00:08:49.540 And how did it change the Adirondacks and the economy there and just not have people there?

00:08:53.620 Well, it's hard to say exactly how many people were affected directly by Murray's book, but

00:09:02.360 we know that he made a fortune on the book.

00:09:05.540 He made $25,000 in the first year of sales of the book.

00:09:10.360 And this is at a time when the average per capita income in the U.S. is under $200 a year.

00:09:16.700 So he made an enormous amount of money so that we know lots of copies were sold.

00:09:21.120 And in the Adirondacks, they directly felt it.

00:09:25.680 In the year prior to his book coming out, a couple of hundred people showed up at Saranac

00:09:32.440 Lake during the whole season to go, you know, into the backwoods and stuff.

00:09:37.780 The year that Murray's book is written, 1869, that it's published, they got at least 2,000

00:09:44.280 to 3,000 people.

00:09:45.980 So they had a 10 to 15 time increase in the number of people camping.

00:09:50.380 And then the following year, 1870, there was at least 5,000 people or more show up.

00:09:57.760 So this is a tremendous increase in the number of people going to the Adirondacks.

00:10:02.760 And what was camping like at this time?

00:10:04.600 I mean, who were the type of people going and how did they get there?

00:10:08.400 And what kind of stuff did they bring for them to camp?

00:10:10.940 Well, relatively few people actually go camping compared to the total size of the population

00:10:20.300 in the 19th century.

00:10:21.940 This is for a bunch of reasons, but particularly, it's mostly upper middle class people who go

00:10:27.500 camping.

00:10:28.240 And that's largely because you had to have a lot of money.

00:10:31.680 It's not cheap to go camping in 1880, say.

00:10:35.580 And you needed time.

00:10:37.860 You had to be able – and most Americans didn't have vacations in the 19th century,

00:10:42.040 most working Americans.

00:10:43.820 And so you had to have your own business or profession or be able to sell or save enough

00:10:50.040 money to be able to do this.

00:10:51.220 So people class people and a few wealthy people that are going, they didn't take much gear.

00:10:57.840 There wasn't much gear that we would – the kind of things we would think of today,

00:11:01.680 just most of them didn't exist in the 19th century.

00:11:05.720 So what they would take was relatively heavy and cumbersome and difficult to move around,

00:11:11.940 which means there were not a lot of people who walked as campers, like backpacking, just

00:11:17.600 a handful of them.

00:11:18.860 There's a fair number of people who went on horseback or in canoes, things like this.

00:11:24.420 There was, again, a few who would go with a horse and wagon, but a horse and wagon was

00:11:31.200 very expensive.

00:11:32.700 And a lot of – you had to sort of get a bunch of people together to do it.

00:11:37.320 And when they went camping, mostly they went nearby.

00:11:41.800 They would just say, take the train two stops past the edge of town, get off, walk out along

00:11:49.180 some river and into the edge of a farm field and plop down and start camping.

00:11:54.700 They were perfectly happy to just go basically nearby.

00:12:00.120 Only the wealthy, I mean, and the truly wealthy, could go long distance to some place like Yellowstone

00:12:06.040 or to Yosemite or something like that.

00:12:09.280 Since most of the people who are camping at this time in the 19th century, of course,

00:12:13.400 live in the northeastern part of the U.S.

00:12:15.960 And Yellowstone's a long way away.

00:12:18.200 So you had to have a lot of time and money to be able to do that.

00:12:21.520 Yeah.

00:12:21.760 And during this time, even after Murray's book, this whole marketplace for camping literature

00:12:27.080 just sprung up.

00:12:28.840 And articles started proliferating in magazines about camping.

00:12:33.160 And as you said, they talked about the benefits as like it's a way to recoup from the stressful

00:12:36.800 life of the city.

00:12:37.760 But even though this was primarily an upper middle class activity, one of the benefits that

00:12:43.840 these publishers pushed or these writers pushed was that camping was economical.

00:12:48.300 It was like an economic recreational activity.

00:12:51.540 Yes.

00:12:52.260 Yeah.

00:12:52.680 I mean, it is a common trope you hear because I'm sure people were cautious.

00:13:00.160 You know, somebody said, well, you should go camping for, you know, two weeks or months.

00:13:03.580 And they're going, yeah, but that's extra cost, you know.

00:13:06.260 And so there was many, as you point out, there are many articles that were published saying,

00:13:12.260 oh, no, no, you know, it's so inexpensive to go camping that in fact you can keep your

00:13:18.820 house and go camping and your, you know, overall expenses will be reduced or at least no higher

00:13:26.280 than what you're already experiencing because you can catch your food, you know, you can go

00:13:31.520 out and catch fish.

00:13:32.420 You don't have to buy meat, something like this, you know, you don't need to buy fuel.

00:13:38.440 You could just get the fuel from the forest or something along those lines.

00:13:42.500 So, yeah, there was a lot of effort to sort of convince people to don't worry, this is

00:13:47.680 not going to cost you a great deal of money.

00:13:50.160 And also it's in the light of people who, of this class, who one of the things they would

00:13:56.800 typically do on vacations if they had the time and money was they would go to hotels,

00:14:02.780 say, you know, in Saratoga or something like this.

00:14:07.160 And that's very expensive to do, to stay, to have a room for two weeks and eat at one

00:14:12.840 of these places.

00:14:13.740 And so camping, the people who promoted camping were situating it in this sort of like, yeah,

00:14:19.520 you can do all those things, but you'll do this, you'll have a better time and it won't

00:14:22.920 cost you so much.

00:14:23.780 And so, as you said, they just kind of plopped their tent wherever.

00:14:27.320 So at this time, there still wasn't an infrastructure for camping.

00:14:30.360 Did conservationists, because when the conservation movement was starting to pick up, were they

00:14:34.200 concerned about the effect that campers were having on the environment and on forest because

00:14:39.580 of their sort of indiscriminate camping?

00:14:42.960 Generally speaking, no.

00:14:44.780 There was, I've come across very little in the, you know, kind of like, be careful or anything

00:14:51.520 like that, or gosh, we have to control the campers.

00:14:55.000 Although, having said that, there are people who do note that there's problems from this.

00:15:01.460 The Forest Service, when it first gets money, the U.S. Forest Service, when it first gets

00:15:06.900 money to develop camping facilities, it does so as an effort to prevent fires.

00:15:12.680 Or the Park Service, and one of the things the Park Service did them, the rangers did, most

00:15:19.500 commonly at first was give people tickets for leaving fires unattended.

00:15:25.500 Fire was a particularly special concern.

00:15:28.640 And John Muir, again, as unsurprisingly, one of the things he noted in the late 19th century

00:15:35.520 was that campers were polluting streams.

00:15:38.400 He was one of the first people to sort of mention it, and yeah, in fact, used it as part of his

00:15:43.900 campaign against Hetch Hetchy and Yosemite Park.

00:15:47.560 But generally speaking, conservationists didn't see much concern with the impacts of campers.

00:15:55.620 Yeah.

00:15:55.960 And they might have probably liked it because it got people in nature and maybe helped promote

00:16:01.080 the cause a bit.

00:16:02.220 They were like, oh, this is nice.

00:16:03.900 Yeah.

00:16:04.060 So we had all this proliferation of campers in the middle to late 19th century.

00:16:08.780 How did the market respond to America's camping craze?

00:16:12.540 Because whenever there's a craze in America, there's always a company out there trying to

00:16:16.500 capitalize on that.

00:16:18.440 So what sort of businesses popped up during this time that catered to campers?

00:16:24.020 Well, I think you can sort of put them into three kinds of groups.

00:16:27.920 One is there were lots of small companies popped up to provide all sorts of items, whether those

00:16:35.300 were, say, imagine, if you will, before there's much camping equipment, people had to mostly

00:16:40.260 bring plates that would be ceramic, you know, or they would bring, you know, cookware that

00:16:47.040 didn't nest or fit into each other and stuff.

00:16:49.580 So initially, companies sprang up to sort of say, okay, look, we can sell you cutlery that fits

00:16:56.360 inside your cups, which can be stacked in together.

00:17:01.100 And all of these pots and pans, they can all be nested together.

00:17:05.860 And they basically, these companies tried to provide greater convenience and comfort.

00:17:11.400 And they made all sorts of things, all kinds of efforts at cooling, ice chests, there's

00:17:19.300 ice chests in the 19th century, cookware in particular is one of the things that people

00:17:24.280 go after, clothing, manufacturers are trying to provide, tents.

00:17:30.060 But most of these companies, they made a product and then they pretty much disappeared.

00:17:35.880 You know, they didn't last very long there for whatever variety of reasons.

00:17:41.400 In addition to them, there were businesses which recognized they, which already had a

00:17:47.940 product and then recognized that their product would have had a new market, potential for

00:17:53.980 a new market that was campers.

00:17:56.260 So for instance, Ivory Soap, which was the company that initially made Ivory Soap, begins

00:18:03.840 in 1840, long before camping.

00:18:05.980 And they're selling soap to, you know, people in homes and stuff like that.

00:18:09.440 But then in the mid to late 19th century, campers come up and Ivory starts promoting its product

00:18:17.660 to campers.

00:18:19.000 You know, it's clean, it can clean anything, it floats, you know, you're not going to lose

00:18:24.460 the bar of soap if you start washing in the street.

00:18:27.800 And there's a variety of these kinds of companies.

00:18:30.800 Eagle Brand Condensed Milk is another one.

00:18:33.660 And then that again and again, they say, ah, we have a product, let's market it to campers

00:18:41.140 too.

00:18:42.160 And a lot of these, you know, you can still, you know, if you go into camping supplies

00:18:48.360 or sporting goods stores, you still find products made by companies that generally you don't

00:18:53.800 think of as camping companies.

00:18:55.020 But they make a product that fits camping and it gets sold in a sporting goods store.

00:19:00.600 And then lastly, there are those businesses which sprang up and continued and lasted.

00:19:06.860 They sprang up to make a product for campers and they've lasted all the way through.

00:19:12.660 And the one I always think of that I remember most is Airstream Trailers, say.

00:19:17.920 Now they're the beginning of the 20th century.

00:19:19.820 But Airstream was one of many trailer companies, most of which failed ultimately.

00:19:26.960 But there they are still putting out Airstreams and people still love them.

00:19:32.380 And yeah, I mean, this is after about 1880, there's a real awareness that camping is a

00:19:40.040 market, that there's a big market of campers and you don't want to pass them up.

00:19:45.080 Yeah.

00:19:45.360 But what this, the market introduced all these comforts.

00:19:48.340 They introduced this debate that we still see amongst campers, right?

00:19:52.000 About what is, what is real camping?

00:19:55.560 You know, like backpackers will say, well, no, we're the legit campers because we just

00:19:59.460 take everything we need in, don't bring anything out.

00:20:03.200 You know, the, the car campers think, well, we're better than the, the trailer campers because

00:20:08.220 at least we're sleeping in a tent.

00:20:10.160 Did this debate exist back then in the early days of camping?

00:20:13.560 Oh, yes.

00:20:14.780 Right from the very beginning.

00:20:16.280 Um, I, I think if we, if we recognize, or if we accept the idea that camping is a sort

00:20:23.940 of anti-modern activity that it's, and that part of the modern world is technologies, what

00:20:31.280 I, one of the reasons I think campers divide along these different mode lines of modes,

00:20:37.300 backpacking, trailer camping, canoe camping, car camping.

00:20:40.340 I think one of the reasons they do that is they, they're willing to accept different levels

00:20:47.020 of technological, uh, presence in, uh, in the, in nature with them.

00:20:53.780 And that tension has never ended.

00:20:57.340 I mean, uh, totally.

00:20:59.040 I, I mean, I, I feel it myself.

00:21:00.620 I love to go camping, uh, and, uh, you know, and, and I'm sure I've made more than one,

00:21:07.740 you know, observation that, well, I would never use that kind of equipment or something,

00:21:12.200 but camping is, um, sort of camping is what campers do.

00:21:16.660 You know, if they're happy with it and they feel good about it and it satisfies them, I

00:21:21.520 think we have to accept that, um, you know, it is camping might not be the kind of camping

00:21:25.700 I or somebody else would care to practice and maybe I wouldn't feel the pleasure and

00:21:31.740 the, the relief and, you know, release from camping in, uh, somebody else's mode with a

00:21:37.580 trailer or with a backpack or whatever.

00:21:40.440 Nevertheless, I, I think it's clear that the people who do use those kinds of, uh, technologies,

00:21:46.480 they're, they are enjoying themselves.

00:21:47.900 They are having a good time.

00:21:49.520 It does work for them, but it doesn't make them any more satisfied with the other

00:21:55.380 kinds of camping.

00:21:56.920 Right.

00:21:57.460 You know, there's a lot of ritual around camping, even today, right?

00:22:01.140 Like you, first thing you do, you get to a spot, you, you play, you pitch your tent,

00:22:05.340 then you get the fire going, then you get, maybe you have a chuck box, you get that going.

00:22:09.960 Were these rituals started back in the 19th century when camping was first getting going?

00:22:14.380 In the 19th century, there's not so much of that, but, but in the 20th century, uh, at the,

00:22:21.160 at the very beginning, late end of the 19th, very beginning of the 20th century,

00:22:24.500 um, it starts to appear, you start to see it in magazines and, uh, and in, uh, how to

00:22:30.960 books and stuff like this, um, because you start to see articles appearing in say winter

00:22:36.760 time in a magazine, you know, ladies home journal or something like this, uh, popular mechanics

00:22:43.340 or something talking about, well, now summer's coming, you know, you want to get ready for

00:22:49.000 that camping trip.

00:22:49.920 You know, you got to start planning it.

00:22:51.620 You got to start thinking about it.

00:22:53.560 And I think we see this at the, this is, and this is not exclusive to camping, I think,

00:22:58.180 but at the beginning of the, uh, 20th, end of the 19th century, they start to, to, there's

00:23:04.160 this literature that says, imagine, imagination's the first thing you do is imagine where are you

00:23:09.080 going to go?

00:23:09.480 Then you plan it, then assemble it all.

00:23:12.080 And finally, you know, when you're going to go and, uh, get out there.

00:23:16.160 But the one activity I think that has become most identified, I think, with camping, one

00:23:23.860 of those rituals, which does go right back to the very beginning is the campfire.

00:23:29.040 I mean, uh, you can see people talking about, be sure to have a campfire, you know, right

00:23:34.340 in the 1870s, uh, right after Murray's book and virtually every first early book's written

00:23:40.560 about, uh, camping.

00:23:42.000 They'll illustrate them with campfires, people standing around campfires.

00:23:46.540 It's clearly, uh, something that, that, uh, has a strong ritual meaning for, uh, campers,

00:23:52.560 no matter what kind of mode they practice.

00:23:55.100 Yeah.

00:23:55.120 So, so what I think that was interesting too, you bring up this point was by the early 20th

00:23:59.320 century, the frontier in America pretty much closed.

00:24:02.320 Like all the states that were once territories were states.

00:24:06.240 Like I live in Oklahoma, 1907, Oklahoma was a state.

00:24:09.720 A few years later, Arizona was a state.

00:24:11.600 So there's this closing of the frontier.

00:24:13.680 How did that closing of the frontier affect how Americans viewed camping?

00:24:18.300 Well, um, this idea, which was, um, made, um, well, whatever, widely known by Frederick

00:24:26.260 Jackson Turner, the historian, 1890s, uh, when people came to think of the, the, uh, frontier

00:24:33.740 as closing, it wasn't until that was going away that they came to think, you know, this

00:24:38.760 is how we became Americans.

00:24:41.060 You know, the frontier was the place where immigrants from other countries, other parts

00:24:48.260 of the world, other parts of America, they'd move out onto the frontier.

00:24:52.560 And even if they weren't, you know, kind of true Americans in a way, the interaction between

00:24:58.560 them and the frontier left Americans behind, that it created Americans. 0.71

00:25:03.540 So it was us, it was people interacting with the American frontier.

00:25:07.880 Well, when it, when it is officially declared gone and closed, camping, it becomes a much more

00:25:16.040 of a, it starts to be presented in, in, uh, literature.

00:25:20.300 It's like, look, this is, this is how you got to get to the frontier.

00:25:23.880 This is all that's left.

00:25:25.400 This is, we don't have that actual frontier anymore, but we do have wild places.

00:25:30.960 What do you do?

00:25:32.000 You go camping.

00:25:33.240 Uh, it's the closest thing we we're going to be able to do.

00:25:36.800 And importantly, you take your children to go camping too, because this is how you can

00:25:42.900 be sure that, uh, they'll get that experience that your forebears, that the pioneers had,

00:25:49.540 you know, they'll, they'll have that same experience and they'll end up being rugged

00:25:53.740 and tough and self, uh, you know, self-supporting and this sort of thing.

00:25:59.040 So camping, uh, sort of got kicked up a notch by the, culturally by this idea that the frontier

00:26:06.100 was gone.

00:26:07.540 Right.

00:26:07.560 I mean, another idea of the, the frontier thesis was that front, the frontier is like

00:26:11.600 what made democracy work in America, right?

00:26:14.000 Cause of the frontier, you could go out and everyone was pretty much the same, whether

00:26:17.000 you were a banker from East or some, you know, roughneck or cowboy, like you were sort of 0.99

00:26:22.240 on the level because you're out facing nature with each other.

00:26:26.040 Yes.

00:26:26.760 And, um, this is, uh, uh, again, a common, uh, sort of recognition on the part of individual

00:26:35.420 campers.

00:26:36.080 You can find it in their diaries, talking about meeting people of all sorts of walks of

00:26:41.500 life and being really pleased and getting along with them.

00:26:44.840 They could go camp in Yellowstone or Yosemite or, you know, uh, any great smoky mountains or

00:26:50.680 something.

00:26:51.000 And they would meet these people and, uh, they all came back feeling like, yeah, I'm

00:26:56.120 an American, they're an American.

00:26:57.580 We're all Americans here, you know, out here in the woods and doing this sort of thing.

00:27:02.620 And, uh, uh, you know, the parks and the forest promoted that, this idea, you know, these are

00:27:09.440 America's playgrounds.

00:27:10.680 And by that they mean, you know, this is where all Americans can come, all of us.

00:27:15.380 And, um, I, I think that that notion still persists, you know, I, this is my own experience

00:27:23.600 with camping is that, uh, you get out, you get your campsite and, um, and people will

00:27:29.180 just come up, chat with you, take a look at your gear, offer you things, be very helpful.

00:27:34.460 Uh, I don't think that has changed a great deal.

00:27:37.600 Uh, but it's definitely, uh, something that appears at least in the early 20th century,

00:27:43.920 if not earlier.

00:27:45.700 Right.

00:27:45.800 So, uh, probably by the mid 1920s, the, the car had become a mainstay in America culture.

00:27:51.900 How did the car pretty much pour gas on the camping flame in America?

00:27:56.740 Uh, um, the automobile transformed camping, um, the automobile, uh, you know, initially was

00:28:05.900 a play thing for the rich, you know, and it, it didn't have much effect until, you know,

00:28:11.200 through the 19, uh, through 1910, give or take.

00:28:14.360 But then Henry Ford, to his, you know, everlasting credit, he figured out how to make automobiles

00:28:21.560 cheaply and in mass numbers.

00:28:24.740 And, um, people took the cars like crazy and the number of people who could camp skyrocketed.

00:28:32.040 Uh, the automobile really made camping available to anybody who could afford a car.

00:28:38.700 And, and there were a lot of used cars in short order and, you know, America really took to

00:28:44.820 the road.

00:28:45.260 And so we see the number of people going camping, uh, in the national parks just takes off like

00:28:51.920 a rocket, uh, in the night by, by the 1920s.

00:28:55.440 Certainly it's just going up very, very fast.

00:28:58.540 And, um, campers love this.

00:29:01.040 They didn't see the car, many, at least most campers, they didn't see the car as some sort

00:29:05.680 of, you know, inappropriate invasion of the, of the woods or desert or wherever, but rather

00:29:12.600 they saw it as something that facilitated their ability to get into the wild.

00:29:17.860 That is, if nothing else, it could take them to the edge of some roadless area.

00:29:22.100 Uh, but it did allow them to go into such wild places, which for the average person seemed

00:29:27.620 very wild.

00:29:28.180 So the automobile had a huge effect, you know, no tremendous effect on camping.

00:29:35.200 And I'm sure the debate between like what was real camping only intensified, but all

00:29:39.180 the, the canoe campers were like, oh, these, these car campers, they're, they're ruining

00:29:44.280 the, the scene here with their, their cars.

00:29:46.880 Oh yes.

00:29:47.280 Uh, the car, I mean, the automobile, uh, probably indirectly is, um, responsible for the creation

00:29:58.000 of wilderness in America and the, uh, prompting of a lot of backpacking.

00:30:05.340 And as you say, a lot of canoe camping as well.

00:30:09.180 This was, uh, these people, people who were supporting a backpacking and wilderness and canoe

00:30:14.860 areas and protected lake areas and stuff.

00:30:17.280 They saw the automobile as an invasion by, um, people who didn't, who, who just took

00:30:25.180 advantage of, of the ability of the car to get anywhere and, and, uh, we're just creating

00:30:31.100 roads anywhere, uh, getting the government to do that.

00:30:35.500 And, um, they then, you know, uh, pressed to get, uh, wilderness areas protected for backpackers

00:30:44.740 or wilderness areas for canoe campers.

00:30:46.540 So the, uh, the automobile, um, uh, it very much facilitated the number of campers, but

00:30:51.780 in reaction to that, the automobile also, uh, ended up creating places for backpacking

00:30:57.620 and canoe camping too.

00:30:59.940 And the automobile, one of the things that did as well is it pretty much created the

00:31:03.020 infrastructure of camping that we see today.

00:31:05.880 Like you go to any campsite, whether it's a state park or national park, you're going

00:31:10.240 to see this pretty much the same thing.

00:31:11.280 You're going to see like a restroom facility. 1.00

00:31:13.020 You're going to see a table, like a cement table or wooden picnic table with a grill

00:31:18.240 pre-destined or preset campsites.

00:31:21.400 You'll see showers and you'll see like the, the ubiquitous one way, you know, road that

00:31:27.520 goes through.

00:31:28.020 And this started in about the 1930s, right?

00:31:30.740 With, um, E.P.

00:31:32.100 Minecki, is that his last name?

00:31:33.460 Minecki.

00:31:34.140 Minecki.

00:31:34.540 Yeah, it's Minecki.

00:31:35.940 Yeah.

00:31:36.440 Tell us a little about him.

00:31:37.340 Well, mine, um, if you, uh, just before the 1930s, that as we said, camping is booming

00:31:45.080 because of the automobile and lots and lots of campers are coming, especially to the national

00:31:51.100 parks and forests, uh, in the West.

00:31:54.300 And there's no regulation.

00:31:58.020 The National Park Service has a, an approach to regulation, which they refer to as indirect.

00:32:03.720 That is, they don't like to put up signs.

00:32:06.660 They don't like to tell you, you can't park here.

00:32:09.280 You can't do this there.

00:32:10.280 You can't do, they'd rather, you know, put a rock in your way and, and to get you to

00:32:15.220 not park there or something like that.

00:32:17.780 Well, they didn't want to tell campers, you know, don't camp in places.

00:32:21.580 And so people could camp virtually anywhere in a national park.

00:32:25.140 And they did.

00:32:26.340 And the problem was they particularly liked to all camp in the same places, which would

00:32:31.980 be like Stoneman Meadow at Yosemite or something.

00:32:35.000 And they'd like to be right up against the rivers.

00:32:36.920 And this was causing, uh, killing the vegetation, polluting the rivers.

00:32:42.500 Something had to be done about all of this, uh, as a result.

00:32:46.680 And then there's all these cars crammed together.

00:32:48.600 The Forest Service approached a gentleman named E.P.

00:32:53.540 Meineke, who worked for the Department of Agriculture.

00:32:56.540 He was a plant pathologist.

00:32:58.540 And they said, can you help?

00:32:59.920 He'd help them with other vegetation issues.

00:33:02.820 And they said, look, the campers are basically killing the redwoods, the sequoia, giant sequoias

00:33:07.780 at Sequoia National Park and around the area.

00:33:10.180 Can you help us?

00:33:11.880 Meineke went, took a look and said, yeah, you're right.

00:33:14.440 All these campers in these cars, they're killing the trees because they're running over the

00:33:18.300 roots.

00:33:19.460 So they said, what can we do?

00:33:22.040 And long story short, Meineke basically developed, designed the modern campground.

00:33:29.420 That is like what you were saying.

00:33:31.240 You now have fixed roads.

00:33:33.680 They're one way.

00:33:35.120 Can't go in both directions.

00:33:36.720 You have a camping spur for your car.

00:33:39.800 It's sort of a garage in the forest, if you will.

00:33:42.560 So there's a table sitting there.

00:33:45.060 There's a place where your tent is supposed to go.

00:33:49.040 There's supposed to be, should be some vegetation around you.

00:33:52.540 So he sort of, what he did was he created a space that mimicked a domestic space, which

00:33:58.120 you had to fill up.

00:33:59.720 And then there were restrooms that you had to walk to nearby and water fountains or whatever,

00:34:04.500 spigots, things like that nearby.

00:34:06.660 This is all Meineke.

00:34:07.780 And he did this basically in 1932 is when he came up with this design.

00:34:12.560 Which, as you said, is now just everywhere.

00:34:16.140 Virtually every state and national park I've ever been to basically uses this same design

00:34:22.100 for their automobile campgrounds.

00:34:24.660 And Meineke is the fellow who put that together.

00:34:28.260 And one of the appeals to this for the Forest Service and the Park Service was not just that it eliminated

00:34:37.660 pollution and that sort of thing, but also was the parks were being overrun by people.

00:34:44.640 They were being loved to death by campers in the forest.

00:34:47.600 And, but they, the administrations didn't have any way to sort of manage that.

00:34:54.920 This, this campground gave them a tool.

00:34:59.800 That is, what it did was, as they say, it unitized the campsites.

00:35:04.400 That is, there's a campground, a campsite, a campsite number one.

00:35:08.400 And when all campsites, all your 38 campsites or 107 or whatever there were, when somebody

00:35:14.900 was in everyone, then the authorities could say, campground's full.

00:35:19.920 You can't camp here.

00:35:21.020 And previously, they'd not been able to say it was full.

00:35:24.520 People would just say, well, I can cram something in there.

00:35:26.320 I could shove a car in there.

00:35:27.560 It'll be fine.

00:35:28.900 And this gave them an ability to control the campers so that they could make space.

00:35:36.640 Then they added the two-week rule or 30-day, initially a 30-day rule, and then a two-week

00:35:42.200 rule is you can only stay for 30 days or you can only stay for two weeks.

00:35:45.600 And then you have to leave so somebody else can come in and camp here.

00:35:48.180 And it gave the authorities not only better protection of the environment, but it also

00:35:53.480 gave them more control over campgrounds so that people wouldn't just come, which they

00:35:59.280 did, and come and camp for three months and make, you know, basically use up all the space.

00:36:06.860 Yeah.

00:36:07.800 So, yeah, the car democratized camping even more.

00:36:12.200 But then, as you talk about in the book, there was sort of a revolt against car camping.

00:36:17.100 Um, and this sort of emphasis on canoe camping, but also backpacking.

00:36:22.160 But one of the other movements that was going on in America that coincided with the shift

00:36:26.620 was the long trail movement that started, um, with the, with the Appalachian Trail, uh,

00:36:31.920 then the Pacific Crest Trails.

00:36:33.080 How did the long trail movement sort of put the gas on backpacking in America?

00:36:37.540 Well, there, the people had been, uh, hiking, particularly in the, in the Northeast and

00:36:43.440 the Appalachians, uh, the Appalachian Mountain Club is an old organization, which had been

00:36:48.160 about hiking, uh, and they had cabins and stuff like this along, they still do along their

00:36:54.500 trails.

00:36:54.860 But in the early 20th century, 1910s, actually the first long trail, the long distance trail

00:37:02.360 is, is called the Long Trail in Vermont.

00:37:05.680 And, uh, this was supported by, uh, people who wanted to go out camp as well as hike and

00:37:12.780 just walk along.

00:37:13.700 So they'd have a place to do that.

00:37:16.400 And, uh, backpackers, this, these things, they're all coming together.

00:37:20.900 The backpackers had become, uh, more enthusiastic and they were more active and their equipment

00:37:28.920 was getting, their gear was getting lighter in the early 20th century and they wanted places

00:37:33.360 for themselves.

00:37:34.400 And so, um, they pushed to create these long trails.

00:37:39.440 Um, and, uh, as you said, the, probably the best known of the early ones is the Appalachian,

00:37:45.600 uh, trail, the AT, uh, stretching, whatever it is, 2000 miles.

00:37:51.080 And then it was followed pretty quickly, at least by the idea of, took a little longer

00:37:55.340 to complete the Pacific Crest Trail.

00:37:57.940 And, uh, I, you know, I think that the significance of these trails and the significance of backpacking

00:38:06.160 in the, uh, popular imagination, uh, has always remained, uh, strong and, uh, in that this is

00:38:13.600 the form of camping, which I, you know, even those people who don't want to practice it,

00:38:19.580 I think would admit that, yeah, you know, there's, you know, it's a special form, uh, and provides

00:38:25.540 a special experience because you have to walk just like people have always had to, uh, until

00:38:30.560 20th century or whatever, and they could finally get cars, but people for, you know, 10,000 years

00:38:36.920 have had to walk if they wanted to get places.

00:38:39.200 And that's what backpackers do.

00:38:40.540 And it has this special appeal.

00:38:42.600 Um, and I think we see, we can see that, uh, popular significance even today in, uh, you know,

00:38:49.180 the, the consequence of Cheryl Strayed's book, Wild, you know, and then the movie being made

00:38:54.420 from it, uh, you know, this idea, you know, Cheryl Strayed, she went on to the Pacific 0.95

00:39:00.540 Crest Trail to find herself, uh, in that long walk, um, and I've heard this from many people

00:39:09.060 who have done seriously long distance, uh, backpacking, which I admit I have not, but,

00:39:16.060 um, I talked to one gentleman who had, he walked the AT three times, the entire thing.

00:39:21.680 And, uh, the last time he did it, uh, at the end, he broke down and just started crying

00:39:27.900 and he couldn't stop, you know, because he said it, it, it had, it doing that kind of

00:39:33.420 long distance walking puts you in a mental state that's simply not reproducible elsewhere.

00:39:40.540 So there are special places.

00:39:43.160 Um, I'm curious, I forgot to ask this, Terrence, but was this whole camping craze, you know,

00:39:47.160 beginning of the 19th century into the middle part of the 20th century, was this a uniquely

00:39:51.780 American thing or were other Western countries also experienced this sort of camping craze

00:39:58.140 going on?

00:39:59.400 Well, camping, uh, is equally popular in Canada to Americans and it's more or less contemporary

00:40:05.840 with what's happening in the United States.

00:40:08.860 Uh, I don't think it's quite as intense.

00:40:11.100 The forms are practiced elsewhere, but the meaning I think is really an American experience.

00:40:17.900 I mean, you can go to, you know, France, French or big campers, uh, or Germany or Sweden or,

00:40:25.180 you know, any number of places around the world, Australia and stuff.

00:40:29.020 And you'll find people who are camping, but the reason they camp is, uh, like in the case

00:40:35.620 of the Europeans in particular, it's an inexpensive form of, um, you know, vacation.

00:40:41.180 And they'll tell you that.

00:40:42.460 I mean, you know, why, why are you camping?

00:40:44.100 Well, you know, it's cheap, um, and, uh, allows us to be here.

00:40:47.900 But I think to, to say that about American camping, just, just see it as something that's

00:40:52.920 inexpensive vacation, misses, um, the cultural significance that it has held for us for a

00:41:00.760 long time.

00:41:01.720 You know, it's, it's, it's a means for Americans who don't or aren't comfortable with cities

00:41:09.700 to kind of make up for having to live in them.

00:41:13.740 I mean, we understand if you want to have a job and good income and all that today, you're

00:41:18.600 going to more or less going to end up living in a city.

00:41:21.520 Um, but you don't have to like it.

00:41:23.580 And camping, uh, is, is a way to kind of make up for it for a couple of weeks or, or whatever.

00:41:30.300 And that's, um, that, that is unusual.

00:41:33.980 That's something Americans do, uh, more than anybody else.

00:41:37.500 Why, you know, you'd have to ask if you go to Britain, why do they camp?

00:41:41.080 Well, you know, they have other reasons, but not the same as us.

00:41:45.160 So what's the state of American camping today?

00:41:47.660 Uh, it's still very strong.

00:41:49.380 Uh, latest surveys I've read, uh, put camping, uh, we're talking at least a minimum of 50

00:41:56.300 million Americans, about one sixth of the population go camping every year.

00:42:00.680 This is, and you know, it's, it's in, when you ask people, what do you do in your leisure

00:42:05.700 time?

00:42:06.320 And you give them a list of things and they'll pick them, uh, camping almost invariably ends

00:42:11.040 up in the top 10.

00:42:12.160 And that's up there with watching television and going to restaurants and stuff like this.

00:42:17.400 Uh, it's, it remains extremely popular in America.

00:42:21.840 At the same time, I would say it is not as significant, uh, while the numbers are still

00:42:28.280 enormous, um, it's not as culturally significant as it once was.

00:42:34.100 I think, um, the, the kind of high point in American history for, for camping as a kind

00:42:41.120 of cultural phenomenon, uh, was the 1920s.

00:42:44.780 Uh, it was that car.

00:42:46.200 I mean, the car liberated people to go camping, everybody went camping, Henry Ford, John Burroughs,

00:42:53.760 Harvey Firestone, and Thomas Edison had these annual camping trips that they did and that

00:43:00.080 were in the news and stuff like this.

00:43:02.400 President Harding joined them on a camping trip.

00:43:05.920 You know, it was, it was enormous at that time.

00:43:09.000 Um, but the total number of course is much smaller than now.

00:43:13.240 So, uh, but I, and the other thing I would say about camping today is I suspect in part

00:43:19.260 it's slowly declining, not seriously.

00:43:23.660 And certainly in backpacking hasn't declined, but the other forms of camping, the number

00:43:28.100 of people doing them seems to be in a kind of slow decline, but not serious.

00:43:32.680 And I would like to think, I mean, I'm not sure exactly why, but I would like to think

00:43:37.880 that one of the reasons is that American cities are becoming more, uh, comfortable little, uh,

00:43:44.240 there's a little bit more wildness in American cities and the need to, uh, you know, leave

00:43:51.080 the city to go into some place far away.

00:43:54.400 It, you know, isn't quite as necessary anymore.

00:43:58.000 And I say this in part, because if you look at pictures, you know, of, of American cities

00:44:02.580 in 1920, they are just so bare.

00:44:08.220 There's no street trees and are few and, uh, you know, just little green anywhere.

00:44:15.020 And you compare that now to the efforts that I think we're trying to do nowadays to, to green

00:44:20.340 up our cities, put in more squares, put in more street trees, just, uh, you know,

00:44:24.400 generally make them, you know, more comfortable, uh, in terms of a mix of wild and, and, uh,

00:44:31.180 you know, and, and art and human art.

00:44:33.960 Uh, it's, it's perhaps taken a little bit of the sting out of the life, life in the city,

00:44:39.260 and therefore a little less, uh, desire to go camping.

00:44:43.180 Well, Terrence, this has been a great conversation.

00:44:44.980 There's a lot more we could talk about in, in the book, but where can people go to learn

00:44:48.500 more information about the book?

00:44:50.160 Well, I have a Facebook page for the book.

00:44:52.680 As a matter of fact, uh, you know, called heading out or camping in America.

00:44:57.160 I think either one will take you there, but also the book is published by, uh, Cornell

00:45:01.780 University Press and, um, they have a website, cornellpress.cornell.edu, and you can find

00:45:10.800 out everything about it there.

00:45:11.980 And it's, uh, uh, you know, it's for sale, uh, in bookstores, online, that sort of thing.

00:45:18.340 Fantastic.

00:45:18.800 Well, Terrence Young, thank you so much for your time.

00:45:20.540 It's been a pleasure.

00:45:21.280 Oh, it's been a real pleasure.

00:45:22.180 Thank you for asking me to be here.

00:45:24.080 My guest today was Terrence Young.

00:45:25.160 He's the author of the book, Heading Out, A History of American Camping.

00:45:28.200 It's available on amazon.com and bookstores everywhere.

00:45:30.360 Also check out his Facebook page where he posts about camping.

00:45:33.040 It's called Heading Out there.

00:45:34.180 And you can also check out our show notes at aom.is slash heading out, where you can find

00:45:37.760 links to resources, where you can delve deeper into this topic.

00:45:39.880 Well, that wraps up another edition of the Art of Manliness podcast.

00:45:55.460 For more manly tips and advice, make sure to check out the Art of Manliness website at

00:45:58.680 artofmanliness.com.

00:45:59.780 If you enjoy the show, you've gotten something out of it, you know, the episodes you've listened

00:46:02.860 to, I'd really appreciate if you take a minute or so to give us a review on iTunes or Stitcher.

00:46:07.020 It helps out a lot.

00:46:07.820 As always, thank you for your continued support.

00:46:09.800 Until next time, this is Brett McKay telling you to stay manly.

The Art of Manliness - August 04, 2017

#327： Heading Out — A History of Camping

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