Adirondack Journal — "A Paradise For Boys and Girls"- Children's Camps Web Page Returns!
From "buddy boards" to "color wars", from rousing sing-a-longs to mail call, from the stirring strains of reveille to the haunting tones of taps, generations of Americans have memories (some great, others not so great) of time spent at summer camp.
For over a century children have been sent to spend the summer at organized camps in the Adirondacks. The first Adirondack camp was the YMCA-sponsored Camp Dudley, which moved to Lake Champlain in 1891. Since then over three hundred camps have been founded in the region. Seventy exist today.
The Adirondack region was well suited for organized children's camps. It had an abundance of wild lands and waterways yet was relatively close to New York City, Boston, and other large cities from which most early campers came.
By 1900 Adirondack camps were among the most influential and well-known in the country, and Adirondack camp directors took active and important roles in the national children's camping movement.
In 2003, the Adirondack Museum opened an exhibition called "A Paradise for Boys and Girls": Children’s Camps in the Adirondacks. Overflowing with camp memorabilia, photographs, film, songs, and a story line that wove together the significance and histories of the diverse "sleep away" camps that once were located in the wilderness – the exhibit opened floodgates of memories for countless former campers.
A companion web unit allowed camp "alums" to record personal reminiscences, locate bunkmates, and reconnect with a time now past. The "Paradise" site was immensely popular and greatly mourned when technical "glitches" prevented its move to the Adirondack Museum’s re-designed web site in 2007.
Hold on to your beanies, campers - the "Paradise for Boys and Girls" web unit is back!
To locate, please click on "Discover and Learn" at the top of the museum’s home page. Go next to "Adirondack Story" in the drop-down list. Click on "A Paradise for Boys and Girls: Children’s Camps in the Adirondacks," and like a favorite counselor on the first day of camp - the unit will appear!
There is more. This summer, a large portion of the original exhibit "A Paradise for Boys and Girls" will be permanently installed in the Hotels, Clubs, and Camps section of the Log Hotel complex. The exhibition will include a totem pole from Camp Riverdale carved in 1926, uniforms from Woodmere (ca. 1950s), Brant Lake (1920s) and Moss Lake (1940s), a Buddy Board from Adirondack Woodcraft Camps, bunk signs, awards, banners, and badges, and much much more. An abundance of marvelous historic photographs will bring campers and camp rituals to life.
The Adirondack Museum asks that all who used and loved the Children’s Camps web unit to reconnect – and tell their buddies! We also hope to see each and every one of you on campus this summer for the encore appearance of "A Paradise for Boys and Girls": Children’s Camps in the Adirondacks.
