The adventures of Peanut and Bo: Summer camps and early twentieth-century American girlhood (Exploring hierarchies in gender and age through ritualized recreation activities)

This study considers the rise of girls' summer camps in late-nineteenth- an d early-twentieth-century New York State as evidence of broader shifts in A merican girlhood. The first section traces the historiography of girlhood. Paris then explores how a growing number of girls came to attend camps, est ablishing semiautonomous and temporary communities away from their parents, and considers how factors other than gender enhanced or limited girls' cam ping opportunities. The final two sections investigate how girls at camp le arned and performed gender and age hierarchies, particularly through ritual ized camp activities. Camps, Paris proposes, speak eloquently to the centra l place of recreation in girls' social inculcation, and about girlhood as a social identity that is learned, practiced, and sometimes resisted. Histor ies of girlhood, meanwhile, help us reenvision women's history as meaningfu lly marked by age-bound transitions.