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

Frederick Law Olmstead, who later became the landscape architect of New
York City’s Central Park (and many of the nation’s other city parks), was attracted to
Thoreau’s idea. One of the reasons Olmstead believed city parks to be so important
was so that city dwellers, who made up the majority of Americans in his lifetime,
could have quick access to “green space,” a staple of the natural world. 5 This is one
of the many reasons why Central Park has so much open land, such as Sheep’s
Meadow, and is home to over 21,500 trees and wildlife species. 6
Some urban folk, who had the resources to do so, escaped city life for brief
periods of time in order to experience real nature and try outdoor activities. As
Eleanor Eell’s wrote in Eleanor Eell’s History of Organized Camping: The First 100
Years, “The mystique of nature and the appeal of simple life influenced men and
boys to explore the wilderness of the Northeast on foot and in canoes.” 7 Even some
women ventured on such excursions, as Eell’s wrote: “From the late 1870s…lady
hikers and botanists had explored wilderness trails and climbed with men.” 8
According to Mike Vorenberg, in the 1890s, Americans would see “a stronger reason
than ever to travel deep into the woods in search of new frontiers.” 9 This stronger
desire developed shortly after Frederick Jackson Turner presented his Frontier
Thesis at the 1893 Chicago World Fair, in which he argued that a unique American
identity was created on the frontier. The combination of literature and what Eell’s
5 Mike Vorenberg, Faithful and True: 100 Years at Keewaydin on Dunmore: 1910-
2009 (Salisbury, VT: The Keewaydin Foundation, 2009), 6.
6 Trees and Blooms, The Official Website of Central Park,
http://www.centralparknyc.org/visit/trees-blooms/ (Accessed May 13, 2013).
7 Eells, Eleanor Eell’s History of Organized Camping, 2.
8 Ibid, 2.
9 Vorenberg, Faithful and True, 13.
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