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As camping season approaches, we鈥檙e reminded of starry nights huddling around a campfire, roasting marshmallows and telling stories. But a CU Boulder professor鈥檚 new book encourages those heading to the great outdoors this summer to reflect on the long history of camping and its implications on inclusion, homelessness and protest culture.听
Phoebe Young, an environmental and cultural historian in the Department of History, spent over 18 years studying what it means to camp.
In her new book, , Young takes a closer look at how camping taps into some of our core American beliefs about nature and citizenship, and why some forms of camping became mainstream over time and others became marginalized.听听
鈥淐amping can tell us a lot about how Americans connect to nature, but also who has access to outdoor recreation, how different groups experience the outdoors and the ways in which people camp that are not recreational,鈥� Young said.
Recreational camping is considered the 鈥渘orm.鈥� It鈥檚 the classic image of being in the wild around a campfire.听But Young goes beyond the mainstream definition to examine political forms of camping, like the Occupy Wall Street movement, and functional camps, like those of the unsheltered community.
鈥淩ecreational and non-recreational forms of camping each shape how we think of the other,鈥� Young said.听
鈥淲e can鈥檛 understand one without the other.鈥�
Origins of camping听
Although recreational camping is considered the most universal, or assumed, definition, the origins of camping rest in the functional realm.听
鈥淐amping was what you did when you were traveling and found yourself between towns; you might like it or not, but it didn鈥檛 carry a whole lot of cultural meaning,鈥� Young said.听
But as cities and industries grew, recreational camping became a way of reestablishing connections to the land and claiming a piece of public nature. Gradually, camping evolved from a functional, need-based action to an elite activity for the upper class.听
鈥淚n the late 19th century, you needed a lot of leisure time, something that wasn't available to most people outside the upper classes,鈥� Young said. 鈥淵ou also needed enough resources to get yourself out into nature.鈥�
This elite group of campers worked very hard to keep up appearances and differentiate themselves from those that were migratory or mobile laborers.听
Many non-white populations, particularly African Americans, were also largely excluded from this activity, as they were not-so-subtly discouraged from visiting National Parks.听
鈥淭his is a fact that is getting more attention and focus lately, but it took a very long time for government agencies to proactively address that issue,鈥� Young said.听
The 鈥渞ight鈥� amount of roughing it
Why do we tend to see homeless camps as visual and environmental burdens, but national park campgrounds as wholesome and patriotic landscapes? Why did national movements like 听Occupy Wall Street result in less tolerance for the unhoused and unsheltered?听
Young looks at the way recreational, functional and political forms camping have intersected with each other over the last 150 years, and how those interactions have sparked debates over who has the 鈥渞ight鈥� to camp.鈥�
She uses the example of Occupy Wall Street鈥撯�搕he most visible, in recent times, where people used camping for political means. The movement, which began in New York City鈥檚 Wall Street financial district in 2011 and spread to other major cities across the country, protested economic inequality and the corruptive influence of major corporations on the government.
Instructions for the Occupy protests indicated a date, a place, and a single instruction: 鈥淏ring Tent.鈥�
Young said the tactic took off in ways that surprised both organizers and observers. The grassroots movement turned out tens of thousands across the U.S.鈥撯�搃ncluding in Denver, where protesters pitched their tents at Civic Center Park. Camping at dozens of Occupy sites captured the nation鈥檚 attention, as did the attempts from legislators to dislodge Occupiers, which allowed the protest to remain in the news for longer.
鈥淐amping has been a consistent protest tactic since the 19th century, but what we saw on Wall Street particularly was this very interesting reaction from lawmakers that saw what Occupy was doing as a perversion of recreational camping,鈥� Young said.听听
As a result, many cities and municipalities enacted anti-camping bans or closed public outdoor spaces at night in the wake of Occupy that directly affected the unhoused communities who relied on functional camping as a means of survival.
顿别苍惫别谤鈥檚 , which passed in May 2012 after the Occupy movement ended, is not technically a ban on camping, but does outlaw听鈥渦nauthorized鈥澨齝amping on both public and private property. Currently the city doesn鈥檛 authorize camping in any public places.听
In 2020, a Denver County judge ruled听that 顿别苍惫别谤鈥檚 camping ban is unconstitutional, putting the controversial ordinance, once again, at the center of a legal and political debate over who has the right to camp freely.
Turning the rock over
As a cultural and environmental historian, Young enjoys interrogating things we tend to take for granted, whose meanings may seem obvious, and figuring out how they got to be so seemingly universal.听
鈥淚 like turning the rock over to see what lies beneath, and how they听came to be so assumed,鈥� she said.听
And as families and friends across the nation head out camping this season, she encourages people to do the same.听
鈥淲e need to recognize the reason camping has become so embedded in our infrastructure has a longer and complex history that has differential effects on how we use the outdoors and who gets preference in using the outdoors.鈥�
Young鈥檚 book Camping Grounds: Public Nature in American Life from the Civil War to the Occupy Movement (published by Oxford University Press) is available starting May 11, 2021 on and听.听
