Girls in nature/the nature of girls: Transforming female adolescence at summer camp, 1900--1939

There have, of course, always been teenagers. Yet adolescence as a distinct life stage was invented by psychologists and educators at the turn of the twentieth century. As soon as these new humans were discovered, adults were equally enchanted by their promise and dismayed by their problems. A cluster of organizations—the Camp Fire Girls, Girl Scouts, and YWCA, to name only a few—arose to repair what their leaders referred to as the “girl problem.” Young women were poised on the threshold of a physical and emotional transformation into adulthood, while American society was in the midst of a transition to modernity that promised advances for the status of women. It was, leaders believed, a challenging, indeed exhilarating, time to work with girls.; This dissertation explores the summer camp—an admittedly peculiar, but nevertheless important, site at which adults hoped to solve the crisis of female adolescence. The natural landscape of camp, directors argued, had the ability to ease the perilous transition from a sheltered Victorian girlhood to a potentially dangerous modern adolescence. Leaders believed that camp could facilitate positive changes in many facets of girls' lives—from their personal relationships with family and friends, to their public commitment to the state, to the more private matters of self-respect and self-sufficiency.; This successful transformation of female adolescence at camp rested upon two ideals: the proper construction of the camp landscape and the selection of appropriate role models. In a nation anxious about the “racial degeneracy” caused by urbanization, immigration, and industrialization, leaders sought out what they perceived to be an ideal American landscape populated by mythic American ancestors. The landscape recalled atavistic traits lost to the present generation; the role models embodied a “natural” femininity that was one part hardy adventurer and one part admirable homemaker. I argue that summer camps, the symbolic home of the pioneer woman and primitive maiden, are a revealing place to look for the development of the modern adolescent girl.