"Territory Open to Girl Activity": Socialization through Wilderness in Camp Fire Girl Fiction, 1912–1920

Abstract

it is clear from the photos of Camp Fire Girls provided at the end of the handbooks that going out into the world of consumption, work, and politics was not an image the movement relished. Rather, the photographs depicted girls enjoying a swim, making a fire with a bow and drill . . . building a tepee, and learning to cook outdoors. [They] suggest that the movement’s main contribution to the lives of American girls was to cleanse it, if only momentarily, of almost all signs of modernity. Could this be her once frail daughter, who had despised all strenuous sports and hated water above all things, who was swinging her paddle so lustily and steering the Keewaydin so skillfully? What was this strange Something that the Camp Fire had instilled into her? She caught her breath with the beauty of it, as the girls glided along between the radiant banks, the two paddles flashing in and out in perfect rhythm. (58)