For a long time, the idea of sleeping outdoors has either been celebrated or denigrated, depending on who is doing it.
A recent book by the historian Phoebe S. K. Young explores what, exactly, camping is and how the pursuit intersects with protest culture, homelessness, and identity.Illustration by Sally Deng
The 18-seventies social sections in Scribner’s Monthly could no longer conceal it that The “American pleasure-seeking public” had exhausted the options to indulge in their passion. Vacationers after vacationers decided to settle for “broiling in a roadside farm-house” in an “odor of piggery and soap-suds.” Then they went to expensive resorts, and found “more anxious swarming crowds than those left behind.” To get a sense of solitude on a budget, Scribner’s suggested an unusual last option–a trip in the woods with just the tent and some basic supplies. “We mean camping out,” the magazine declared in a way that sounded like it was aiming to trigger an exhilarating gasp. This kind of activity is a great choice for those with “a lucky drop of vagabond blood in their veins.”
A drop of water is enough, however. The early campers did not want to be misinterpreted as vagabonds, so the distinction between the two could be very easily blurred. The year 1884 was the time Samuel June Barrows, an outdoor enthusiast, and later, a congressman for one term was warned that anyone carrying an “motley array of bedding, boxes, bags, and bundles” could trigger “suspicions of vagrancy”; to differentiate oneself from the rest of the pack the best option was to bring an “de luxe” tent and trendy clothes. Barrows’s concern highlighted the flaws of camping for recreation that was described by him as “a luxurious state of privation.” One of its advantages is that it’s only limited in duration. In the pursuit of leisure, the well-off campers sought the same conditions which, in other situations, they deemed to be uncivilized or unsanitary.
TAllan Pinkerton, the founder of the uncompromising Union-busting Pinkerton National Detective Agency, blamed the Civil War for giving men an experience of “the lazy habits of camp-life.” In 1878’s ” Strikers, Communists, Tramps and Detectives,” Pinkerton described”the “grotesque company” tramps kept under the moonlight, stating that the debauchees would twitch “in a stupid sodden way that told of brutish instincts and experiences.” The most frightening than the camps was the worry that certain Americans may find the encampments attractive and would prefer in order to indulge in “the genuine pleasure of the road.”
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The travel industry was quick to recognize these pleasures and made tramping an aesthetic thing, something campers could stow away in and take off whenever they wanted. The writer of Outing which was a magazine targeted at the wealthy outdoor enthusiasts, favored the “rough it in the most approved ‘tramp’ style–to abjure boiled shirts and feather beds and dainty food, and even good grammar.” As Young mentions, the quotation marks surrounding “tramp” raised a barricade between the fake and the original. Real tramps lived a risky existence, and were subject to surveillance, arrest and poverty as well as the stigma of. In the days of elite campers wearing their costumes, they scowled at the reality of a world where the writer Pinkerton said in her book, “a man may be eminent to-day and tomorrow a tramp.”
Double standards were particularly apparent when it came to Native communities. White Americans, including Barrows, considered tribal settlements to be the definition of savagery. They believed that the U.S. Office of Indian Affairs believed that Native populations would abandon the “barbarous life” and take up “a distaste for the camp-fire.” The objectives were presented as issues of public health, however the message was radically different based on the target audience. However, even though Native communities “learned that the only way to prevent consumption was to give up camp life,” Young writes, “recreational campers read that exposure to fresh air and sunlight” could help cure the disease.