num_pages: 264
description: Peter J. Schmitt describes the many ways in which America's urban middle class became involved with nature from the turn of the century to shortly after World War I, and he assess the influence of the "Arcadian myth" on American culture. With sympathy and gentle irony, he surveys the manifestations of the American love affair with the summer camps, the beginnings of wildlie protection and the conservation crusade, landscaped cemeteris, "Christian ornithology," and wilderness novels. The Arcadian drive reflected urban values, as the city-dweller sought virtue in nature. Landscape gardening, country clubs, national parks, and scenic turnoffs imposed the industrial ethic of order, neatness, and regularity on natural landscaps. Nature study and anthropomorphic animal stories taught moral values to children.
language: English
title: Back to Nature: The Arcadian Myth in Urban America
titlecomplete: Back to Nature: The Arcadian Myth in Urban America
genres: Nature, History, Nonfiction, Environment
ratings_count: 13
publisher: Johns Hopkins University Press