Description
Peter J. Schmitt describes the many ways in which America's urban middle class became involved with nature from the turn of the century to shortly after World War I, and he assess the influence of the "Arcadian myth" on American culture. With sympathy and gentle irony, he surveys the manifestations of the American love affair with the country: summer camps, the beginnings of wildlie protection and the conservation crusade, landscaped cemeteris, "Christian ornithology," and wilderness novels. The Arcadian drive reflected urban values, as the city-dweller sought virtue in nature. Landscape gardening, country clubs, national parks, and scenic turnoffs imposed the industrial ethic of order, neatness, and regularity on natural landscaps. Nature study and anthropomorphic animal stories taught moral values to children.
Contributes not only to our understanding of the place of wilderness in the popular mind, but to the forces that made early-twentieth-century Americans dissatisfied with the urban lives they had chosen. -- John R. Stilgoe
About the Author
Peter J. Schmitt is professor of history at Western Michigan University.
Reviews
The subject has needed detailed treatment for years, and I always expected the definitive study would be accomplished by a naturalist. But Peter Schmitt is a historian, and it's probably better that way after all. I guess this book is the one I've been looking for. -- John Eastman Natural History
Book Information
ISBN 9780801840135
Author Peter J. Schmitt
Format Paperback
Page Count 264
Imprint Johns Hopkins University Press
Publisher Johns Hopkins University Press
Weight(grams) 312g
