"Life without Conventionality: American Social Reformers as Summer Campers on Lake Memphremagog, Quebec, 1878-1905"

Historians have interpreted the rise of the wilderness holiday movement in the late nineteenth century as a middle-class response to the belief that modern urban life was leading to social degeneracy. The increasingly popular boys’ camps, in particular, are said to represent a conservative reaction against the feminization of society. But the summer camp established by the Barrows family on the Canadian shores of Lake Memphremagog does not fit this mold. Rather, it was a semi-utopian environment in which prominent American social reformers felt free to apply their progressive ideals, with increased gender equality being at the forefront.