Reinventing the frontier: Tourism, nature, and environmental change in northern Wisconsin, 1880--1930

This dissertation examines the development of tourism and outdoor recreation in northern Wisconsin from the 1870s to the 1920s. It is explored within the context of the broader trends in American culture and, in particular, the “back to nature” movement that permeated upper and middle class America beginning in the late nineteenth century. Northern Wisconsin, or the Northwoods as it became known, was first “adopted” by the elite of Chicago and other large Midwestern cities, who thought they could escape the real and perceived problems of modern, city life through periodic retreats to nature. A so-called “frontier” narrative took shape from the beginning within the tourism and outdoor recreation movement in the Northwoods that produced a distinctive material and nonmaterial regional culture, iconography, and sense of place that resonates in the physical and cultural landscape even to this day. The manifestations of this narrative form the core of my study and they are examined in five topical chapters. The first discusses the competing visions that people and institutions had for the region in the late nineteenth century as its forests were cutover or burned during the logging era. The second analyzes railroad guidebooks that promoted northern Wisconsin tourism. The railroads were the first agencies to promote tourism and, as such, had a significant impact upon creating expectations and impressions of the place. The third chapter looks at the early resort landscape that emerged and the people involved in its development, both producers and consumers. The fourth traces the development of a distinct tourism and outdoor recreation industry and economy in the region. The final topical chapter explores the diffusion of the youth summer camp from New England to northern Wisconsin.; Materials to support this study were gleaned from a variety of state-wide and local archives, governmental publications, published and unpublished local histories, as well as from intensive field work employing collections of photographs, diaries, and account books still in the hands of families involved in the tourism trade at the time. Railway guidebooks local newspapers served as valuable primary sources of information as well.