In the first half of the twentieth century, summer camps in Ontario were promoted as a much-needed escape from city living and the pathway to a world of natural, pre-modern simplicity. This paper demonstrates that, by the late 1920s, camp administrators and promoters were, in fact, pulled in two directions; they treasured the idea of antimodern escape, but, they also sought to make the camp programming “truly modern” by integrating the latest psychological and educational wisdom. At all sorts of camps, the language and aims of educational psychology and the mental hygiene movement influenced the nature of camp goals, camp programming, and thinking about campers themselves. Camp was regarded as providing the ideal environment for fostering psychological health and for applying the principles of progressive education. This paper explores administrators’ view of the value of psychological and educational expertise, the extent to which they were able to apply these at camp, and, to a lesser extent, children’s reactions to the modern, psychologized camp.
In a broad sense, summer camp was hailed as a recreation of 'the Indian way of life,' a place where (mainly) white children learned 'to live like Indians' during the summer months. This article explores this curious cultural phenomenon and concludes that the camp's Indian programming had little to do with honouring or even understanding Aboriginal peoples and more to do with seeking a balm for the non-Native experience of modernity. Drawing on recent scholarship on antimodernism, 'playing Indian,' and child-rearing, it suggests that a racialized form of antimodernism expressed itself at camp, as did modern infatuation with questions of childhood, identity, and race.
Dans un sens large, le camp d'été était acclamé comme un retour au mode de vie des Indiens, un lieu où des enfants blancs (pour la plupart) apprenaient à vivre comme des Indiens pendant les mois d'été. Cet article explore ce curieux phénomène culturel et conclut que la thématique indienne des camps d'été n'avait pas grand chose à voir avec la commémoration ni même la compréhension des peuples autochtones, mais qu'il s'agissait plutôt de la recherche d'un remède à l'expérience vécue par les non-autochtones à l'égard de la modernité. À la lumière d'études récentes sur l'antimodernisme, la tendance à « jouer aux indiens » et l'éducation des enfants, cet article révèle qu'une forme d'antimodernisme axée sur la race s'est exprimée à travers les camps d'été, parallèlement à l'engouement moderne pour des questions comme l'enfance, l'identité et la race.
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