Tillery, Randal K.

Folklore and Childrens Worlds: Nature, Place, and Belonging in a Romantic

Key. Childrens Folklore Review 17.2 (1995): 3-11. Print.
Jennifer Perkins
Childrens Folklore English 3070

Randal K. Tillery takes us on a more romantic perspective into the folklore of childrens summer camps. What
the purpose was for creating summer camps, and what experiences summer camps provided children throughout
the history of their conception, are two important questions addressed in this article. Most specifically, Tillery
expounds on how lore involved in summer camping impacted and instilled a sense of nature, place and
belonging in children.
Tillery takes a literary approach to conducting and writing his article. He uses research from a
Psychologist, camping professionals and history, mostly from the time period of 1900-1940. During the early
part of the 20th century, the average family and therefore children, were abandoning the frontier in favor of city
life. With this shift in living conditions experts began to believe children were at risk of becoming urbanized and
having a problem of inwardness by losing space to hunt, fish, roam, fight, explore, play and be tribal, in
nature.
Using the work of Psychologist G. Stanley Hall's Adolescence, Tillery points out that Hall believed
children had an innate sense of stored ancestral memories almost like a genetic code which provided them a
natural need to play in nature and be similar to Indians or Savages. Without a return to savagery, Hall believed
children would grow up socially stunted and suffer psychologically. Summer camps and camping with their
natural elements, historical lore, pageants, secret codes and tests of courage, ceremonies and crafts, could
straighten a child out and return him to the homes of his childhood. Thus, summer camps began.
Summer camps were mainly for young men. Stories and nature became the education which Hall
described as necessary for growth. A sense of place and belonging was deemed to be a result of summer
camping. Tillery makes a case that the effect of tying young men back to nature not only required living in the
wild, as Hall suggested, but a combination of singing, performing pageants, and listening to stories of past native
people, and pioneers. Children would often create works of art, tools, meals, shelter, and even bring home
authentic talismans from a particular geographic area. In fact, it was not enough to merely suggest sharing
ancestral stories to summer campers, but recommended that directors go as far as locating native peoples to come
and get acquainted with the young men by holding a meeting together. Stories shared, whether first hand or
not, were said to positively affect a childs citizenship, help foster ancestral heritage, and racially identify them
to the land.

Tillery points to the sense of place and belonging at summer camp as romanticized due to the nature of
historical immersion and storytelling. At the beginning of his article, he shares about a camp counselor telling a
story to a group of 9 year old female campers about storytelling itself. Today when you hear people tell stories
or when you tell one yourself, we are participating in a tradition that has been going on for thousands of years
the councilor says. Tillery summarizes that stories and storytelling is significant to developing summer camp lore
because storytelling reaches across time and connects a child at present, to life in the past. It is in that connection
that he suggests storytelling becomes a type of catalyst behind, or as I visualize, an umbrella over children
finding nature, place, and belonging during a typical American summer camp.
Tillery researched that lore continues to reinforce a sense of camp being a place with history which
retains its unique mysteries, magic, stories and community in a natural environment. We can see an example of
this in our National Park system. Each park hosts a Junior Ranger Program which aims to instill in each child
who immerses themselves in it, a sense of place, belonging and stewardship of the land. Children can complete
packets, attend programs full of stories, lore, history, education and experiences and tie their afternoon or
overnight experience to this lore. In my opinion, Junior Ranger Programs become a mini summer camp of sorts,
producing the same effect Tillery writes about.
Though he address his thesis well, Tillery admits difficulty in capturing nuances and subtleties, both
obvious and hidden, concerning the 'place' of folklore in this particular set of discourses. In researching the
history of summer camps he shows a deeper connection. A self that is rooted to a site, my camp will always be
my camp, but generalized by its relationship not to folklore, but to the very idea of folklore, summarizes what
he calls the genius of the summer camp, where children find nature, place and belonging in romantic undertones.