The New Promised Land: Maine's Summer Camps for Jewish Youth ...

“well-to-do Boston and Washington D.C. families” in its first session in 1881. 25 Most
of the boys attended Episcopal schools during the school year, so the camp had a
woodland chapel area. The camp grew in size due to the original boys’ positive
experiences and the camp’s advertisements in The Churchman, a theological journal
of the time. Paris writes that Balch ran into debt by 1888 and shut down the camp.
However, Eells writes that Balch shut down Chocorua because he was confident that
he had “proved his point” and shown that the camp experience was beneficial for
the boys and for their families.
At the same time, organizations such as the Young Men’s Christian
Association started promoting summer camping opportunities. In 1885, Samuel
Dudley, an active member of the YMCA, started Camp Dudley. In its first summer,
there were only seven campers, but by 1891, there were eighty-three campers. 26
Camp Dudley was so successful that the YMCA opened more camps, and by 1901,
“there were 167 YMCA camps nationwide, most clustered near northeastern
cities.” 27 These camps were designed to provide “the religious awakening of boys
and their ‘conversion’ to Christ.” 28
Other organizations established camps similar to the YMCA camps, such as
Ernest Thomas Seton’s “Woodcraft Indians” and Daniel Beard’s “Sons of Daniel
Boone.” These organizations sought to teach Indian folklore and the joys of camping
out. Both Seton and Beard believed that learning Indian stories and living a “so-
25 Leslie Paris, Children’s Nature: The Rise of the American Summer Camp (New York
and London: New York University Press, 2008), 33.
26 Timeline- 100 Year Anniversary of the American Camp Association, Accessed
December 19, 2012, http://www.acacamp.org/anniversary/timeline/
27 Paris, Children’s Nature, 42.
28 Ibid, 42.
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