A world of good 50 years ago - camping management in the 1930s

Picture yourself as a camper or a camp director 55 years ago. The programs at summer camps were different then, although the philosophy of camp is very similar today. Half a century ago we did not have some of the modern conveniences that are available now. Life was also different because most countries in the world were in the midst of World War II.

History can tell us much about how people of the past lived and how institutions such as camps evolved to their present existence. Many camps across the country have a rich history that many younger camp professionals do not know. Let's step back for a moment and learn what was happening in one camp over 50 years ago. Perhaps this story will motivate other camp directors to share anecdotes about how camps collectively and individually have been providing kids with a "world of good" for decades.

We interviewed Helen Cohen, former director of Camp Walden in Denmark, Maine, ten years ago as part of an oral history project. Camp Walden is a private camp for girls started in 1916. Mrs. Cohen became the camp director in the late 1930s when she was 26 years old.

World War II was a challenge to camp directors for many reasons. Running a camp meant that the director had to get the rations for meat and sugar. The camp staff also tried raising crops. Since the director did not live at the camp year around, this task was a challenge and often "the weeds were higher than the crops." Mrs. Cohen said:

We sent our campers out to pick beans and to pick things and that worked when you put best friends on two ends of a row so that they had to work toward each other instead of next to each other. There were corn factories and bean factories up there and then they [the campers] took the money that they got and they sent it to some of these refugee camps in France and places like that for other children.

Program efforts also took new directions. For example, during those summers of World War II, the campers used sewing machines to make dresses and then put soap in the pockets and shipped them to refugee children. Camp Cohen adopted a refugee camp in France, and refugee children visited the camp as campers.

There was another camp program activity was unique to the coastal areas of the U.S. 50 years ago. Four or five camps in Maine were selected for a special assignment. The Air Force came to camp and taught the campers the silhouettes of different war planes. The campers then climbed Mr. Pleasant and stayed overnight, watching for airplanes:

The campers would stay up there for 24 hours until another camp came to relieve them. All camps around did this and everyone did their share. Of course you sent the trips out in a horse and wagon and did what you could rather than use gasoline.

During these war years, it was also difficult to find men to work in camp, because so many of them were engaged in other war endeavors. Mrs. Cohen described how difficult it was to get good help during the war but said that afterward there were many "interesting" individuals available.

The war years were also a challenge because some of the campers and staff had relatives overseas. Mrs. Cohen described the first night at camp after the war ended in 1945:

The first night of peace, Tuesday night, it was the first night that we used our picnic circle down near the water and it's called the "peace circle." We just all went down there that night and we sat and sang and sang and sang and people cried and it was really very moving. It was a tremendous night. People knew that their fathers and their uncles and others were no longer in danger of being killed. It was a great, great moment that unless you lived through it, you wouldn't know about.

A camp director in any era faces unique challenges. The impact of World War II may be no different from the social issues that face our campers fifty years later. Raising vegetables, aiding other children in need, helping children from other countries attend camp, and singing songs about peace around the campfire all have relevance today. Although the context may be different, the meaning is similar. The director and staff at Camp Walden addressed the issues of World War II with aplomb and with a camp philosophy that continues to have significance for today.

References

Henderson, K.A., & Bialeschki, M.D. (1990). Using the oral history technique for preserving camp history. Camping Magazine, 62(3), 14-15.

Karla A. Henderson is a professor in the curriculum of leisure studies and recreation administration at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. M. Deborah Bialeschki is an associate professor in the curriculum of leisure studies and recreation administration at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

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