Heading Out: A History of American Camping - Hardcover

Young, Terence

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0801454026 ISBN 13: 9780801454028

Publisher: Cornell University Press, 2017

Synopsis

Who are the real campers? Through-hiking backpackers traversing the Appalachian Trail? The family in an SUV making a tour of national parks and sleeping in tents at campgrounds? People committed to the RV lifestyle who move their homes from state to state as season and whim dictate? Terence Young would say: all of the above. Camping is one of the country's most popular pastimes―tens of millions of Americans go camping every year. Whether on foot, on horseback, or in RVs, campers have been enjoying themselves for well more than a century, during which time camping’s appeal has shifted and evolved. In Heading Out, Young takes readers into nature and explores with them the history of camping in the United States.Young shows how camping progressed from an impulse among city-dwellers to seek temporary retreat from their exhausting everyday surroundings to a form of recreation so popular that an industry grew up around it to provide an endless supply of ever-lighter and more convenient gear. Young humanizes camping’s history by spotlighting key figures in its development and a sampling of the campers and the variety of their excursions. Readers will meet William H. H. Murray, who launched a craze for camping in 1869; Mary Bedell, who car camped around America for 12,000 miles in 1922; William Trent Jr., who struggled to end racial segregation in national park campgrounds before World War II; and Carolyn Patterson, who worked with the U.S. Department of State in the 1960s and 1970s to introduce foreign service personnel to the "real" America through trailer camping. These and many additional characters give readers a reason to don a headlamp, pull up a chair beside the campfire, and discover the invigorating and refreshing history of sleeping under the stars.

About this title

Review:

"Has America seen its heyday of camping peak? Is sleeping under the stars now on a slow downward trajectory, not unlike the dying flames of a campfire? That’s one of the questions Terence Young examines in this heavily footnoted text tracing the history of camping in the United States.... Trends in modern camping are just one intriguing aspect of this text.... Heading Out also touches on the end of segregated campgrounds and how the loop campgrounds you find in the National Park System came about."

Source: National Parks Traveler

"The great strength of this book is that it distinguishes 'noneconomic social relations, science, and technology, values, attitudes and beliefs' in camping pilgrimages from the scenic, sublime, and transcendental nature that earlier generations sought.... Young writes with an accessible yet confident prose that will engage readers of differing interests. Embedded in each chapter are fascinating revelations... [that] Young has carefully researched and wonderfully written."

Source: Pacific Historical Review

"While searching for the meaning of camping, Young concludes it is a pilgrimage activity―not religious, but an experience where people leave home, travel somewhere as an act of devotion, and return home changed. This focus led Young to one of the book's key insights: that camping is as much about leaving somewhere as it is about going to another place. This book's vignettes are well researched and provide interesting details that drive the narrative."

Source: Western Historical Quarterly

"By interweaving historical analysis with biographical sketches of individual authors or campers from each era, Young maintains a light, conversational tone that makes the book an easy and pleasant read."

Source: California History

"Terence Young's new book Heading Out: A History of American Camping, a major contribution to ongoing studies of camping, takes us on a satisfying multi-stop excursion through the question of why―for more than two centuries―North Americans have voluntarily left home to carry packs, pitch tents, and park travel trailers in the name of recreation. Along the way, Young provides deep insights into the diverse modes, meaning, and implications of American camping, with the idea that this practice moves us out of ordinary life―not necessarily into the natural, but away from the urban."

Source: Social & Cultural Geography

"Carefully written and highly readable."

Source: Journal of Sport History

"Heading Out will engage and delight. Camping enthusiasts, backpackers, nature lovers, and scholars will enjoy and learn from this work. It is a satisfying read."

Source: Environmental History

"The book is richly illustrated with campground plans and photographs.... Young has made an important contribution to camping history, and Heading Out will encourage land use professionals, environmental historians, and camping enthusiasts to hit the road, trail, and archives for more adventure."

Source: American Historical Review

"Young offers a fascinating evolution of camping from the 1860s to the present.... Heading Out will engage and delight. Camping enthusiasts, backpackers, nature lovers, and scholars will enjoy and learn from this work. It is a satisfying read."

Source: Environmental History

"Heading Out is full of original research and insight about the history of camping in the United States. Backpackers, campers, RV enthusiasts, and others with an interest in the history of their pastimes will find this book fascinating."

Author: Philip Terrie, Bowling Green State University, author of Contested Terrain: A New History of Nature and People in the Adirondacks

About the Author:

Terence Young is Professor of Geography at California State Polytechnic University. He is the author of Building San Francisco's Parks, 1850–1930 and coeditor of The Theme Park Landscapes: Antecedents and Variations.

About this edition

• Publisher: Cornell University Press
• Publication date: 2017
• ISBN 10: 0801454026
• ISBN 13: 9780801454028
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 382