What do you think?
Rate this book
Camping & Tramping with Roosevelt
This book was converted from its physical edition to the digital format by a community of volunteers. You may find it for free on the web. Purchase of the Kindle edition includes wireless delivery.
93 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 1, 1907
37 people are currently reading
170 people want to read
About the author
John Burroughs
916 books174 followersIn 1837, naturalist John Burroughs was born on a farm in the Catskills. After teaching, and clerking in government, Burroughs returned to the Catskills, and devoted his life to writing and gardening. He knew Thomas Edison, Henry Ford, Theodore Roosevelt, John Muir and Walt Whitman, writing the first biography of Whitman. Most of his 22 books are collected essays on nature and philosophy. In In The Light of Day (1900) he wrote about his views on religion: "If we take science as our sole guide, if we accept and hold fast that alone which is verifiable, the old theology must go." "When I look up at the starry heavens at night and reflect upon what is it that I really see there, I am constrained to say, 'There is no God' . . . " In his journal dated Feb. 18, 1910, he wrote: "Joy in the universe, and keen curiosity about it all—that has been my religion." He died on his 83rd birthday. The John Burroughs Sanctuary can be found near West Park, N.Y., and his rustic cabin, Slabsides, has been preserved. D. 1921.
According to biographers at the American Memory project at the Library of Congress, John Burroughs was the most important practitioner after Henry David Thoreau of that especially American literary genre, the nature essay. By the turn of the 20th century he had become a virtual cultural institution[peacock term] in his own right: the Grand Old Man of Nature at a time when the American romance with the idea of nature, and the American conservation movement, had come fully into their own. His extraordinary popularity and popular visibility were sustained by a prolific stream of essay collections, beginning with Wake-Robin in 1871.
In the words of his biographer Edward Renehan, Burroughs' special identity was less that of a scientific naturalist than that of "a literary naturalist with a duty to record his own unique perceptions of the natural world." The result was a body of work whose perfect resonance with the tone of its cultural moment perhaps explains both its enormous popularity at that time, and its relative obscurity since.
Since his death in 1921, John Burroughs has been commemorated by the John Burroughs Association. The association maintains the John Burroughs Sanctuary in Esopus, New York, a 170 acre plot of land surrounding Slabsides, and awards a medal each year to "the author of a distinguished book of natural history".
Twelve U.S. schools have been named after Burroughs, including public elementary schools in Washington, DC and Minneapolis, Minnesota, public middle schools in Milwaukee, Wisconsin and Los Angeles, California, a public high school in Burbank, California, and a private secondary school, John Burroughs School, in St. Louis, Missouri. Burroughs Mountain in Mount Rainier National Park is named in his honor.There was a medal named after John Burroughs and the John Burroughs Association publicly recognizes well-written and illustrated natural history publications. Each year the Burroughs medal is awarded to the author of a distinguished book of natural history, with the presentation made during the Association's annual meeting on the first Monday of April.
More: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Bur...
http://research.amnh.org/burroughs/
According to biographers at the American Memory project at the Library of Congress, John Burroughs was the most important practitioner after Henry David Thoreau of that especially American literary genre, the nature essay. By the turn of the 20th century he had become a virtual cultural institution[peacock term] in his own right: the Grand Old Man of Nature at a time when the American romance with the idea of nature, and the American conservation movement, had come fully into their own. His extraordinary popularity and popular visibility were sustained by a prolific stream of essay collections, beginning with Wake-Robin in 1871.
In the words of his biographer Edward Renehan, Burroughs' special identity was less that of a scientific naturalist than that of "a literary naturalist with a duty to record his own unique perceptions of the natural world." The result was a body of work whose perfect resonance with the tone of its cultural moment perhaps explains both its enormous popularity at that time, and its relative obscurity since.
Since his death in 1921, John Burroughs has been commemorated by the John Burroughs Association. The association maintains the John Burroughs Sanctuary in Esopus, New York, a 170 acre plot of land surrounding Slabsides, and awards a medal each year to "the author of a distinguished book of natural history".
Twelve U.S. schools have been named after Burroughs, including public elementary schools in Washington, DC and Minneapolis, Minnesota, public middle schools in Milwaukee, Wisconsin and Los Angeles, California, a public high school in Burbank, California, and a private secondary school, John Burroughs School, in St. Louis, Missouri. Burroughs Mountain in Mount Rainier National Park is named in his honor.There was a medal named after John Burroughs and the John Burroughs Association publicly recognizes well-written and illustrated natural history publications. Each year the Burroughs medal is awarded to the author of a distinguished book of natural history, with the presentation made during the Association's annual meeting on the first Monday of April.
More: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Bur...
http://research.amnh.org/burroughs/
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 17 of 17 reviews
March 29, 2020
This essay explores the direct perspective of John Burroughs’s one on one experience with President Theodore Roosevelt traveling through Yellowstone together on horseback. This two week journey gives the reader the delightful insight to the character of President Roosevelt. As Burroughs writes “I have not till this blessed season (fall of 1905) found the time to put on record an account of the most interesting thing I saw in that wonderful land, of course, was the President himself.” I read this book as I was driving through Yellowstone, and I felt as if I was on the expedition right there with the two as I was visiting the same sites that they explored. This book exemplifies Roosevelt’s love for man and love for nature. He was a man’s man yet had a deep concern for the human soul and for wildlife.
October 20, 2018
Not perfect
Hint of hagiography here and there, but that's accounted for by their friendship - and the book serves very well as a reminder of President Roosevelt as naturalist and of his times, while being brief.
Hint of hagiography here and there, but that's accounted for by their friendship - and the book serves very well as a reminder of President Roosevelt as naturalist and of his times, while being brief.
September 9, 2019
Written and published during TR's lifetime, this book gives modern readers a different view of a well-known president. His love of nature was extraordinary, matched only by his knowledge of it. A quick read that lets readers see the man rather than the politician.
June 21, 2018
Beautiful imagery and interesting insight to Roosevelt's character.
June 28, 2020
This book by Burroughs certainly was mythopoeic towards Theodore Roosevelt. But a good read none the less.
July 2, 2024
A chance to get a real sense of Teddy Roosevelt, with his bravery and love of the wild.
July 10, 2024
A very fun read.
Read
September 2, 2024An interesting contemporary look at TR’s naturalist tendencies.
October 4, 2022
Tramping and Camping
✔️Published in October 1907.
What a delightfully written book about the experiences John Burroughshad whist Camping And Tramping With President Roosevelt in the West on horseback for a couple of weeks.
I enjoyed reading this rather short memoir, and it helps to flesh out a better understanding of President Theodore Roosevelt.
Following is some insight by the John Burroughs regarding Theodore Roosevelt:
🟣Kindle version.
✔️Published in October 1907.
What a delightfully written book about the experiences John Burroughshad whist Camping And Tramping With President Roosevelt in the West on horseback for a couple of weeks.
I enjoyed reading this rather short memoir, and it helps to flesh out a better understanding of President Theodore Roosevelt.
Following is some insight by the John Burroughs regarding Theodore Roosevelt:
Surely this man is the rarest kind of a sportsman.
The President himself is a good deal of a storm,—a man of such abounding energy and ceaseless activity that he sets everything in motion around him wherever he goes.
Some of our newspapers reported that the President intended to hunt in the Park. A woman in Vermont wrote me, to protest against the hunting, and hoped I would teach the President to love the animals as much as I did,—as if he did not love them much more, because his love is founded upon knowledge, and because they had been a part of his life.
At some point in the Dakotas we picked up the former foreman of his ranch and another cowboy friend of the old days, and they rode with the President in his private car for several hours. He was as happy with them as a schoolboy ever was in meeting old chums.
He said afterwards that his ranch life had been the making of him. It had built him up and hardened him physically, and it had opened his eyes to the wealth of manly character among the plainsmen and cattlemen.
🟣Kindle version.
July 21, 2015
A short book that is essentially two essays of Burroughs' experiences with Theodore Roosevelt - once during a winter expedition to Yosemite and another near his home at Sagamore Hill in New York. It is an interesting eyewitness account of the president's skill and knowledge of natural history from one of America's most renowned naturalists.
November 4, 2011
Two short journals of John Burrough's time with Roosevelt. The first covers a two-week stay in Yellowstone -- in the snow. The second an afternoon visit at the President's home in NY. Both emphasize Roosevelt's interest in and knowledge of natural history.
October 2, 2009
Great story about Prez Roosevelt's unprecedented trip to Yosemite to visit John Muir. I love the interesting angle and the voice of the president is quite fun. As he would say, "Bully!"
March 19, 2012
Easy read. Good description of the very active President and his underlying desire to be a naturalist.
November 11, 2012
excellent first hand account of the president's curiosity and vitality; especially in nature.
June 13, 2016
A wonderful book by the best of America's forgotten writers. Burroughs is a great as Henry David Thoreau, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Theodore Roosevelt, Henry Adams, or Mark Twain
May 14, 2016
What a great little read- took me back and gave me some insight into the bigger-than- life personality of Teddy.
April 5, 2017
Very brief but an interesting account of his days camping with TR. According to this account, Teddy spent quite a bit of time on his own or with only Burroughs.
Displaying 1 - 17 of 17 reviews