Summer Memories

As American cities grew bigger in the 19th century, their residents began to notice one unintended consequences of urbanization, not know as the "heat island" effect. In the 1860s, one NYC official explained that “powerful irradiation from sidewalks, pavements, and walls” made the city a “fiery furnace in Summer."

In 1961, two Nashville boys decided to challenge the segregationist policies of their local swimming pool. In response, the city closed all of its public pools. Read about how the legacy of Jim Crow still impacts swimming in the South a half-century later.

In the decades that followed the Civil War, some Americans started seeing the wilderness as a place worth traveling to. "Civilization was barely established in the western U.S.," according to an author quoted in this article, "when 'citizens were already seeking a respite from it.'"

Hiking was becoming popular at the same time. But despite the image of the solitary wanderer, famously embodied by John Muir, hiking in its earliest days was a social activity. The decisive moment, as this review explains, "was thus the formation of groups like the Appalachian Mountain Club and the Sierra Club, in which 'meetings, dances, meals, and simple companionship were almost as important as the act of walking itself.'"

Tradition and storytelling are woven into life at many summer camps. But this article takes us all the way back to the beginning of summer camp itself, explaining that the idea arose in 1861 out of an effort to show solidarity with the Union Army. It turned out that roughing it for a few weeks with a bunch of other kids was actually pretty fun.