Adirondack Moments - Greetings from the Great Camps: The History of the Adirondack Vacation

In 1850 the Adirondack region remained, literally, a blank spot on the map—unsurveyed, uncharted, and largely unorganized. Most white Americans saw the Adirondacks as a place so desolate that—to quote an early document, "by reason of Mountains, Swampes (sic), and Drowned Lands is impassible and uninhabited."

Yet by 1900 the Adirondacks hosted elaborate summer estates for the wealthiest families in America—including Vanderbilts, Rockefellers, Carnegies, Whitneys, and Morgans. Theodore Roosevelt actually inherited the Presidency while on a midnight buckboard ride through the heart of the park. For more than a century since, the Adirondacks have remained a famous destination drawing magnates, celebrities, and everyday Americans. Hikers, hunters, canoe campers, power oaters, elites, and environmentalists (and many combinations thereof) who all look forward to their visits and vacations in “the ADK.”

How did this transition occur? Why did it occur? What forces led to the development of the region during the late 19th Century, and how does Adirondack history interact with American history more broadly? And just what was a "Great Camp," anyway?

Join American Historian and Year-Round Adirondacker Connor Williams for "Greetings from the Great Camps: The History of the Adirondack Vacation." Williams, who serves as Lead Historian at Great Camp Sagamore and teaches at Middlebury College, will discuss the forces, movements, moments and people that led to the nexus of wilderness, exertion, rejuvenation, and comfort that still all define the Adirondack region today.

Speaker bio:

A scholar, teacher, and advocate of American and African American history, Connor Williams

shares the stories of our past to help shape the societies of our future. A native New Yorker and aspiring maritime mountaineer, Connor currently lives with his family along Lake Champlain in the Adirondack Park. He serves as the Historian for Great Camp Sagamore, a National Historic Landmark and former Vanderbilt estate, where he directs all history programming for several thousand visitors each summer. Most broadly, and via a variety of formats, Connor uses this role to conceive and execute innovative ways to teach environmental history, Gilded Age history, and the history of class, capitalism, and inequality to diverse public history audiences.

Prior to his Ph.D at Yale, Connor earned a M.A. at Dartmouth College, where his thesis examined diasporic influences upon Frederick Douglass’ political thinking. Among other fellowships, awards, and prizes, he was the finalist for the nationwide Louis Pelzer Memorial Award for the best Graduate Student writing. Connor has taught at Yale, Southern Connecticut State University and the Yale College Writing Center. He has also worked for Yale’s Manuscripts and Archives division and the Gilder Lehrman Center for the Study of Slavery, Resistance, and Abolition.