Back to Nature: The Arcadian Myth in Urban America

by Peter J. Schmitt

Peter J. Schmitt describes the many ways in which America's urban middle class became involved with nature from the turn of the century to shortly after World War I, and he assess the influence of the "Arcadian myth" on American culture. With sympathy and gentle irony, he surveys the manifestations of the American love affair with the summer camps, the beginnings of wildlie protection and the conservation crusade, landscaped cemeteris, "Christian ornithology," and wilderness novels. The Arcadian drive reflected urban values, as the city-dweller sought virtue in nature. Landscape gardening, country clubs, national parks, and scenic turnoffs imposed the industrial ethic of order, neatness, and regularity on natural landscaps. Nature study and anthropomorphic animal stories taught moral values to children.

Genres: History, Nature, Environment

264 pages, Paperback

First published February 1, 1990

Reviews

[Nancy Lewis · Rating 4 out of 5]

An interesting account of the changing attitudes toward 'nature' at the turn of the 20th century, when we stopped thinking of nature as something to destroy and started thinking of it as something to tame.

It is not enough to take men out of doors. We must also teach them to enjoy it. -Ernest Thompson Seton 1917

[Steve · Rating 4 out of 5]

A thorough and engaging history, particularly in Schmitt's focus on how a variety of cultural forces both shaped and were shaped by projections of urban desires and attitudes on rural spaces. Also, the attention to how those urbanites went to great lengths to differentiate themselves and their "sophisticated" outdoor activities from those of actual country dwellers is fascinating. Where Back to Nature frustrates – not surprisingly, considering its publication date – is in referring to the working classes, the rural classes, women, and Native Americans always from a distance. Culture is described only through the actions of the wealthy and influential acting upon those "below" them, and the absence of those other voices becomes harder and harder to ignore as Schmitt gets deeper into that history. Also, a couple of chapters feel a bit cursory, especially the one about nature photography, in which the appeal and popularity of the medium is described but not how those technologies of reproduction and presentation impacted later attitudes toward their natural subjects. But those are the complaints of a contemporary reader asking an older book to write in a way perhaps inconceivable in its own moment.

[Erica · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting, if basic, introduction to garden cities and cemeteries in the US. Good bulk of the book is about the "nature study" movement at the beginning of the 20th century--getting kids into nature and developing them into nurtured, whole human beings. A classic, good for basic refs--but many other contemporary books in this vein offer far more info.