There was a long cultural build up to recreational camping. The romanticism of the outdoors goes way back. Henry David Thoreau’s “Walden” (1845) so idealized it that it was almost fantasy; and Mark Twain’s “Roughing It” (1872), made it seem like an awesome romp. And there were many, many others.
A great read. My imagination had me in hysterics after reading about some surveyors who kept a collection of live tarantulas in jars and stacked them up on a shelf in their cabin.
A storm came up in the middle of the night and knocked the roof off an adjoining building, hitting the cabin. In the following turmoil as everyone scrambled, someone knocked the shelf over with a resounding crash and tinkle.
Can you imagine, in the pitch black darkness, someone yelling “Turn out, boys—the tarantulas is loose!”