Boston University OpenBU http://open.bu.edu Theses & Dissertations Boston University Theses & Dissertations 2015 Crafting an outdoor classroom: the nineteenth-century roots of the outdoor education movement https://hdl.handle.net/2144/16023 Boston University BOSTON UNIVERSITY GRADUATE SCHOOL OF ARTS AND SCIENCES Dissertation CRAFTING AN OUTDOOR CLASSROOM: THE NINETEENTH-CENTURY ROOTS OF THE OUTDOOR EDUCATION MOVEMENT by PAUL JOHN HUTCHINSON B.A., Gettysburg College, 1998 M.S., Minnesota State University-Mankato, 2001 Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy 2015 © Copyright by PAUL JOHN HUTCHINSON 2015 Approved by First Reader Nina Silber, Ph.D. Professor of History Second Reader William D. Moore, Ph.D. Associate Professor of American Material Culture DEDICATION This dissertation is more than just the culmination of a Ph.D. program; it is the product of twenty years of professional experience in outdoor education as well as a dozen years of Scouting before that. As a result, there are decades full of contributors to the ideas presented here. As the Scoutmaster in Troop 38 in Adams, Massachusetts, Don “Bones” Girard has taught the importance of community, responsibility, and a love of adventure to generations of Scouts at the foot of Mount Greylock, including me. John Regentin of the Gettysburg Recreational Adventure Board at Gettysburg College introduced me to the professional world of experiential education when I was a student, teaching me not only the technical skills of backcountry travel, but also the importance of professionalism in the outdoors and the value of a true friend. Dr. Jasper S. Hunt, my graduate school advisor at Minnesota State University-Mankato, showed me the intellectual depth of experiential education. If all of western philosophy is a footnote to Plato, then this dissertation is certainly a footnote to Jasper Hunt. When I started the initial scraps and sketches that were to evolve into this dissertation, I wrote them sitting at Dudley Sargent’s desk, living in the cabin where he died, at the camp he founded, warmed by many a fire burning in his great stone fireplace, and watching thousands of campers play on the meadow that had once been home to the “Sargent Girls.” Rob Rubendall, then director of the Sargent Center for Outdoor Education, invested time, passion, and resources into my initial research on Dr. Sargent’s Camp, and with Mark Wilson and Parker Maish, spent countless hours reflecting, iv discussing, and researching the importance of the camp on the field of outdoor education. Many thanks also to Dr. Cheryl Boots who, during an afternoon where we walked a dozen laps around the meadow of Sargent Camp, challenged me to think beyond Sargent and expand the scope of this project into what it eventually became. When the economy collapsed in 2009and Boston University ceased operations of Sargent Camp, this project and my career at BU were in serious jeopardy. Dr. Jay Halfond, then Dean of Metropolitan College at BU, saw the value of experiential education in the twenty-first century and not only kept me on, but also pushed my own perspectives on the boundaries and role of experiential education in higher education. Dr. Jack McCarthy, Dr. Sandi Deacon-Carr, Dr. Lloyd Baird, and Assistant Dean Kristen McCormack of the Organizational Behavior Department at Boston University School of Management pushed those boundaries even more by welcoming me into a truly inspirational and innovative team of faculty, even when I thought OB only stood for Outward Bound. Just as the melting snows form trickles of water which converge again and again into a mighty river, so too is this dissertation a convergence of numerous papers, classes, and the influence of brilliant faculty throughout my graduate work. Dr. Patricia Hills inspired, drove, and helped refine chapters three and four through earlier papers. Everything I know about how to read imagery I have learned from her. Dr. Cheryl Boots helped me to more deeply understand how literary fiction could influence experiential realities. Dr. Charles Capper showed me how to navigate the intellectual networks of v Transcendentalism. But the greatest academic debts I owe are to my advisor and first reader, Dr. Nina Silber and my fellow Sargent Camp alum and second reader, Dr. Will Moore. They helped me to wrangle this raging torrent of ideas into one coherent intellectual stream and for that I am extremely grateful. Of course, the most important person in the creation of this work is my wife, Jaime. Since we first met at a camp in western Massachusetts, our lives have been one adventure after another. When we started this Ph.D., our first child was only three weeks old and throughout our entire experience as parents, she has shouldered an outsized burden in keeping the family moving forward while I was locked away in my office. As excited as I am to finish this dissertation, my real joy is that I will be able to open this office door and go have more adventures with you and the kids. If outdoor education and this doctoral program have taught me anything, it is the value of rugged communalism, that it is the love and support of your community that gets you through challenging times, over summits, and through the rapids. I dedicate this dissertation to those communities of people who helped me through this grand adventure. Thank you. vi CRAFTING AN OUTDOOR CLASSROOM: THE NINETEENTH-CENTURY ROOTS OF THE OUTDOOR EDUCATION MOVEMENT PAUL JOHN HUTCHINSON Boston University Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, 2015 Major Professor: Nina Silber, Ph.D., Professor of History ABSTRACT This dissertation examines the antecedents to the outdoor education movement that proliferated in the first decades of the twentieth century, arguing that it stemmed from the Romanticism that emerged in the nineteenth century. Drawing on a Romantic approach to pedagogy, early outdoor educators looked to nineteenth-century literature and art as inspiration for their educational methods, curriculum and marketing. Rejecting the concepts of “rugged individualism,” these outdoor educators expressed an ideal of “rugged communalism” where concepts of selflessness, community, and democracy became the lessons learned in the outdoors. The first chapter provides an overview of Puritan understanding of the wilderness and corresponding perspectives on childhood and education by drawing on the writings of John Winthrop, Cotton Mather, and Jonathan Edwards as well as John Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress and the experience of King Philip’s War. The Romantic revolution as expressed by Washington Irving, James Fenimore Cooper and others form the basis of the second chapter. Chapter three charts the transformation of American perspectives on wilderness through the visual arts and literature, specifically those writings of Ralph vii Waldo Emerson and Nathaniel Hawthorne combined with the work of Thomas Cole. This chapter also explores the White Mountain tourist industry as an expression of these ideals. The fourth chapter follows the changing conceptions of childhood throughout the nineteenth century with a focus on the image of the barefoot boy and street urchins. Chapter five discusses the development of a Transcendental pedagogy through the writings and educational experiments of Ralph Waldo Emerson, Bronson Alcott, Margaret Fuller, Henry David Thoreau, and Louisa May Alcott, including the impact of the Temple School and Brook Farm. The second half of the dissertation addresses specific applications of experiential outdoor pedagogy. This includes the Boston Farm School on Thompson Island, Charlesbank and the playground movement in Boston, the North Bennett Street Industrial School’s outdoor programs, the relationship between the Grand Army of the Republic and the Boy Scouts of America, and the impact of Dudley Allen Sargent and Sargent Camp. viii Table of Contents Introduction ................................................................................................................................... 1 Overview of Scholarship on the History of Outdoor Education.................................................. 5 Methods and Scope of Crafting an Outdoor Classroom ........................................................... 26 Chapter 1: The Dark Wilderness of New England ........................................................................ 43 Wilderness: An Ancient Concept in a New World .................................................................... 44 Christian, Cotton, and King Phillip ............................................................................................ 49 An Enlightened Revolution in an Educational Wilderness ........................................................ 78 Chapter 2: Romantic Revolutions in the Wilderness .................................................................... 91 King Philip Rises Again .............................................................................................................. 93 Last of the Mohicans, First of the Outdoor Educators ........................................................... 102 Chapter 3: From Canvas to Campfire ......................................................................................... 120 Thomas Cole: The Facilitator of the Sublime .......................................................................... 125 From Savage Wilderness to Tangled Wood: Nathaniel Hawthorne, the Sublime, and Rugged Communalism .......................................................................................................................