By Abigail A. Van Slyck. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, The Preserve and Play conference held in Chicago, Illinois, in May , was the first national forum to explore and promote ways of preserving recreation and entertainment heritage. Van Slyck's book, A Manufactured Wilderness: Summer Camps and the Shaping of American Youth, , is an excellent addition to the growing list of recreation titles that echo many of the themes of that conference.
This book is a key reference for anyone interested in the history of social programming and physical planning for children. Introduced in the s, the North American summer camp concept was part of a return-to-nature trend dating back to the midth century.
Like parks, summer camps not only promised relief from the presumed moral and physical degradation of urban life but, as Van Slyck's research reveals, also reinforced white middle-class American values over time. Van Slyck looked at a fairly narrow range of private camps, camps with religious affiliations, camps organized by social service agencies, and camps sponsored by youth organizations, purposely excluding family, well-baby, and special needs camps.
However, the book itself covers a year period during which philosophical currents dramatically transformed American society, especially with regard to youth. Those currents ranged from changing definitions of childhood to medical theories on germs and health, programmed education, the articulation of child play spaces separate from adult work spaces, and approaches on how to safeguard essential childhood experiences for youngsters.
Initially intended to help children reconnect with their "wild or natural" sides, early summer camps mixed age groups and allowed the campers to fill their days as they pleased, with little structure aside from meals and a swim.
