#327： Heading Out — A History of Camping
Episode Stats
Summary
For most of human history, camping is what you did during war or on a hunting or fishing expedition. It wasn t something you just did for the fun of it, just in and of itself. So how did camping become a modern pastime? My guest to explore is the answer to this question in his latest book, "Heading Out: A History of American Camping."
Transcript
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
00:00:26.160
And while it may seem like camping as a recreational activity has always been around, camping as
00:00:32.200
For most of human history, camping is what you did during war or on a hunting or fishing
00:00:36.500
It wasn't something you just did for the fun of it just in and of itself.
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
00:00:48.840
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
00:00:58.520
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
00:01:12.320
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.
00:01:36.720
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
00:01:47.380
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
00:02:16.640
So when did camping become just an activity that people just did for the sake of doing
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
00:02:35.440
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,
00:02:58.520
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
00:03:20.440
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
00:03:30.320
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?
00:03:50.960
And the cities like New York, Boston, Hartford, Philadelphia, they were growing very rapidly in
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
00:04:24.280
There had been cities like New York before the Civil War, but they'd largely been relatively
00:04:30.980
And the vast majority of Americans had lived in small towns and on farms and, you know,
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?
00:04:51.020
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.
00:05:20.400
So in a way, it was sort of an anti-modern revolt in a sort of, you know.
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
00:05:33.000
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
00:05:48.860
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
00:06:01.760
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
00:06:21.080
And camping's a part of that whole larger movement.
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
00:06:38.480
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
00:06:48.580
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.
00:07:07.120
And the thing about his book is, his book is, I think, kicks off camping for a number of
00:07:22.460
But most importantly, unlike anybody before him, he basically came right out and flatly
00:07:31.820
People, writers before him hadn't really said that.
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.
00:07:51.280
He told them where to go into the Adirondacks in particular.
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.
00:08:25.700
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
00:08:39.780
And people took him at his word and immediately took off and started camping.
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
00:09:05.540
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.
00:09:25.680
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
00:09:45.980
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.
00:10:04.600
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
00:10:21.940
This is for a bunch of reasons, but particularly, it's mostly upper middle class people who go
00:10:28.240
And that's largely because you had to have a lot of money.
00:10:37.860
You had to be able – and most Americans didn't have vacations in the 19th century,
00:10:43.820
And so you had to have your own business or profession or be able to sell or save enough
00:10:51.220
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
00:11:18.860
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
00:11:32.700
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
00:12:09.280
Since most of the people who are camping at this time in the 19th century, of course,
00:12:18.200
So you had to have a lot of time and money to be able to do that.
00:12:21.760
And during this time, even after Murray's book, this whole marketplace for camping literature
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
00:12:37.760
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.
00:12:52.680
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
00:13:32.420
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
00:13:50.160
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
00:14:13.740
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
00:14:23.780
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
00:14:44.780
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.
00:15:28.640
And John Muir, again, as unsurprisingly, one of the things he noted in the late 19th century
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.
00:15:55.960
And they might have probably liked it because it got people in nature and maybe helped promote
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
00:16:18.440
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
00:16:49.580
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
00:17:56.260
So for instance, Ivory Soap, which was the company that initially made Ivory Soap, begins
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
00:18:19.000
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.
00:18:33.660
And then that again and again, they say, ah, we have a product, let's market it to campers
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
00:18:55.020
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.
00:19:19.820
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.
00:19:45.360
But what this, the market introduced all these comforts.
00:19:48.340
They introduced this debate that we still see amongst campers, right?
00:19:55.560
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
00:20:10.160
Did this debate exist back then in the early days of camping?
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.
00:21:00.620
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
00:21:40.440
Nevertheless, I, I think it's clear that the people who do use those kinds of, uh, technologies,
00:21:49.520
It does work for them, but it doesn't make them any more satisfied with the other
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
00:22:53.560
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
00:23:12.080
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
00:23:42.000
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,
00:23:55.120
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.
00:24:13.680
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
00:24:41.060
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.
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.
00:25:25.400
This is, we don't have that actual frontier anymore, but we do have wild places.
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
00:26:07.560
I mean, another idea of the, the frontier thesis was that front, the frontier is like
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
00:26:22.240
on the level because you're out facing nature with each other.
00:26:26.760
And, um, this is, uh, uh, again, a common, uh, sort of recognition on the part of individual
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
00:26:51.000
And they would meet these people and, uh, they all came back feeling like, yeah, I'm
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
00:27:10.680
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,
00:27:45.800
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
00:28:24.740
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
00:28:45.260
And so we see the number of people going camping, uh, in the national parks just takes off like
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
00:29:28.180
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
00:29:47.280
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
00:30:17.280
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
00:30:46.540
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
00:30:59.940
And the automobile, one of the things that did as well is it pretty much created the
00:31:05.880
Like you go to any campsite, whether it's a state park or national park, you're going
00:31:13.020
You're going to see a table, like a cement table or wooden picnic table with a grill
00:31:21.400
You'll see showers and you'll see like the, the ubiquitous one way, you know, road that
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
00:31:58.020
The National Park Service has a, an approach to regulation, which they refer to as indirect.
00:32:06.660
They don't like to tell you, you can't park here.
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
00:32:17.780
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.
00:32:26.340
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.
00:33:02.820
And they said, look, the campers are basically killing the redwoods, the sequoia, giant sequoias
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
00:33:22.040
And long story short, Meineke basically developed, designed the modern campground.
00:33:39.800
It's sort of a garage in the forest, if you will.
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
00:33:59.720
And then there were restrooms that you had to walk to nearby and water fountains or whatever,
00:34:07.780
And he did this basically in 1932 is when he came up with this design.
00:34:16.140
Virtually every state and national park I've ever been to basically uses this same design
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.
00:34:59.800
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.
00:35:21.020
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.
00:35:28.900
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.
00:36:07.800
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,
00:36:33.080
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
00:36:54.860
But in the early 20th century, 1910s, actually the first long trail, the long distance trail
00:37:05.680
And, uh, this was supported by, uh, people who wanted to go out camp as well as hike and
00:37:16.400
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
00:37:34.400
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
00:37:57.940
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
00:38:42.600
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
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.
00:39:43.160
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
00:39:59.400
Well, camping, uh, is equally popular in Canada to Americans and it's more or less contemporary
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.
00:40:44.100
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
00:41:01.720
You know, it's, it's, it's a means for Americans who don't or aren't comfortable with cities
00:41:13.740
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.
00:41:23.580
And camping, uh, is, is a way to kind of make up for it for a couple of weeks or, or whatever.
00:41:33.980
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.
00:41:49.380
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
00:42:06.320
And you give them a list of things and they'll pick them, uh, camping almost invariably ends
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
00:42:46.200
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
00:43:02.400
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
00:43:23.660
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
00:43:54.400
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
00:44:08.220
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,
00:44:33.960
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
00:44:52.680
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
00:45:11.980
And it's, uh, uh, you know, it's for sale, uh, in bookstores, online, that sort of thing.
00:45:18.800
Well, Terrence Young, thank you so much for your time.
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.
00:45:34.180
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
00:45:59.780
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.
00:46:07.820
As always, thank you for your continued support.
00:46:09.800
Until next time, this is Brett McKay telling you to stay manly.