coursework > CI
916 > final
For this project, I read two site histories in order to compare and contrast them with each other. The two books I consider are A Bad Case of Moosepox by Harrie B. Price (1986), and Camp Dudley: The First Hundred Years, edited by Hale, Jones, Keeler, and Schmidt (1984). For purposes of brevity, I'll refer to the books as Moosepox and Dudley.
Each of the two books is ostensibly a history of certain place. Dudley chronicles the account of the oldest still-active boys camp in the U.S. -- Camp Dudley, on Lake Champlain in Westport, New York, founded in 1885. Moosepox tells stories of a boys' camp that I have worked with for ten years, which was founded in 1922.
Both books are significant in my personal research in that they provide insight into cultural models held by those who formed and operated the residential boys camps. Dudley reports that Camp Dudley was explicitly founded in order to enhance the spiritual lives of young boys (p. 1), whereas the origin of Flying Moose Lodge seems to be more of a case of the right people and things being at the right place at the right time. There's undoubtedly more to the story of FML's founding, but it isn't mentioned in Moosepox.
As I read through both books, I tried to note similarities and differences in the camp programs and in the underlying assumptions that are/were taken for granted by the authors/editors. In this paper, I focus on intentions, and note how may they interact with and affect audience, structure, and voice. It is through these often-subtle hints in, and behind, the texts that I am able to better construct a richer understanding of each camp's culture.
Intention, in life history, as with anything, can set a ball rolling in a certain direction. But once it starts rolling and gravity seems to take over, intention seems disappear and we often forget how large of an effect it continues to play in structuring the ball's journey.
Although ultimately written for a grant on Ethnicity and Aging, Barbara Meyerhoff (1978) related that as she was writing it she was uncertain whether Number Our Days was anthropology or a personal quest (p. 12). She happily reports, though, that it and the documentary have led to increased exposure and donations for the community she studied (p. 31, 274).
Much of Daniel James' earlier work seems motivated by a deep personal interest in Peronism, but he claims that Doña María's Story is "devoted in a large measure to transmitting her life story" (p. 31). Transmitting it to whom, he does not address, but most likely it was intended for others interested in Peronism. It turned out compelling enough, in Ariel Dorfman's review, "for those interested in history, testimonio, women's studies" (back cover).
Harry Wolcott (2002) stumbled into the life of a homeless kid with the intention of helping him (p. 3), but turned the experience into a study of a learner intended for a small group of academics (p. 36), then found it blow him into a realm of infamy.
In each of these, I've only mentioned the intent and audience of the authors. It is important to keep in mind that the subjects in the books had their own intentions and ideas of audience, which affected how they structured and voiced their stories. María Roldán customized her stories for Daniel James, with some idea that they were going to go beyond him. Brad had his own understanding (or lack of understanding) when creating his stories for Harry Wolcott. Shmuel and the other elderly Jews at the Center each had their own agendas when they spoke with Barabara Meyerhoff. This extra layer adds further complexity and uncertainty in achieving "accurate" understanding. Like the game of telephone, the message at the end needs to be taken with a large grain of salt.
The authorial intentions of both Dudley and Moosepox seem to be aimed at an audience largely consisting of alumni. Both books will naturally make more sense to readers who have first hand familiarity with the institutions each presents, but each attempts to impart a basic knowledge of the camp to the uninitiated as well. The different approaches they take to do that is also affected by intention, and it is that intention that I try to unpack.
Written to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the camp, Dudley struggles in balancing remembrances with explanation. The third-person voices used in it maintain a certain formality and distance in the text -- almost as though weighted down in its attempt to secure itself as the official record of Camp Dudley. If this is the case, it is countered by numerous contradictions within the text. For example, they note the establishment of the camp in both 1885 and 1895 (p. 1), and H.C. Beckman is noted as director from 1907-1946 in a photo caption, but the chapter title on the next page is "Forty Years Under Chief Beckman 1908-1947" (p. 12-13). Each page is jammed with strings of significant events listed out in paragraph form -- many unexplained in the guise of inside jokes. Any Dudleyite should undoubtedly be able to skim through those that didn't apply to him, and pick out the memories that did. And those who weren't participants should be able to get enough of an understanding of the camp to understand the general scope of Camp Dudley's effect on many boys.
Flying Moose Lodge is a much smaller operation than Camp Dudley, and Harrie Price probably didn't imagine that people not associated with the camp would stumble across and buy Moosepox online (as I did with Dudley). So, rather than spend too much time and effort explaining the details of camp for those who don't know about the camp, Price focuses on celebrating memories and sharing stories. He seems to figure that those who may be interested, who have not directly experienced FML have relationships with those who have -- wives, children, or others who are trying to understand what makes the ex-Moosers act so strange. To them, he offers this challenge:
Place yourself in the role of a fly on the wall, or if you prefer, of a mosquito in the tent, and see if you can understand a little about Moosepox. See if you can understand how the interactions of hundreds of people at this small camp have meant so much to so many" (ch. 2).
The life histories I've read that seem to be more successful take a less linear approach to structure than the less successful ones. In relating the stories of Shmuel the tailor in "Needle and Thread" Meyerhoff (1978) focuses less on the chronology of Shmuel's life than on his stories within the story of their relationship. Indeed, Shmuel weaves events into stories as he feels he needs to in order to present his "valuable lessons" (p. 66), and seems driven to tell them like the rabbis of his youth. Wolcott (2002) also ignores straight sequence, and jumps around in time in order to tell the story he wants to tell. In Doña María's Story, both James (2000) and Maria Roldán arrange and group their stories in order to make their points clearly.
One of the primary editors of Dudley was Willie Schmidt, the camp's director when the book was published in 1984. Schmidt, who earned a doctorate in American History, chose a very chronological order to tell the story of Camp Dudley for the purpose of commemorating and celebrating its first centennial. The Dudley editors chose this style to differentiate from an earlier book, Camp Dudley: The Story of the First Fifty Years, published in 1934, which "focused on the major programs and activities at Camp" (p. iii). The editors instead begin with Sumner F. Dudley's founding and a few of the early short-term directors (p. 1-12), and then break the book chronologically into chapters based on long-term directorships. They this approach, reasoning that,
"For the most part, Camp Dudley is a democratic institution . . . At the same time, the director -- you might call him a benevolent despot! -- remains the fundamental figure. Essentially it is his personality and value system which sets the tone of the camp community as a whole. the editors of this book, therefore, seek to tell the story of Dudley by focusing upon its history in terms of its directors" (p. iii).
Thus the chapters are "Forty Years Under Chief Beckman, 1908-1947" (p. 13-88), "The Marshall Years, 1948-1970" (p. 89-124), "Rollie Stichweh: Facing The Difficult 70's" (p. 125-144), and "Willie Schmidt: Winding Up The Century" (p. 145-182).
Perhaps because he is not on a camp's commemorative schedule, but now retired, is on his own life's schedule to write the book, Price can take a more personal retrospection of the camp. Rather than following the year-by-year register of events and changes that the Dudley editors employ, he breaks his account of Flying Moose Lodge into 22 topical chapters that describe recurring aspects:
"What follows is not arranged chronologically, for chronology has very little to do with Flying Moose. That is why campers from the distant past can return in the 1980s and feel very much at home with the same buildings, the same attitudes, and the same philosophical outlook. That is why old campers can enjoy current copies of the camp newspaper; and present day campers can derive an equal amount of interest from the old copies in the files. That is exactly as it should be. Very little changes at Flying Moose except the length of boys' hair" (ch. 1)
Although he speaks primarily of his experience, he both counters and affirms Dudley's claim of the influence of the director:
"Above all, remember that the camp itself had a strong personality of its own. It almost seemed that it recognized how important that personality was to so many of us; and it worked tirelessly to keep it so. I have felt during many trying moments that the camp took over and kept things on an even keel while I fumbled and bumbled in the wings" (ch. 1).
This first chapter is followed by "First Exposure" (p. 5-6), where Price narrates his earliest contact with FML. Then in "Introductions All Around" (p. 7-16), he gives a description of the physical attributes of the camp. Chapters continue on feeding campers ("Chow Down" p. 17-28), plumbing problems ("Things Sanitary and Not So Sanitary" p. 29-34), canoes ("Trees and Canoes are Best Made Out of Wood" (p. 35-42), and so on. Throughout the 21 chapters, Price conveys stories both witnessed and heard that cover all of the aspects of camp that make FML what it is, including: drama, winter vandalism, sickness, vehicle troubles, trips, the lake, games, etc. In "A Final Word" (p. 145-148), he writes:
"Well, there you have it, many excellent reasons why I am suffering from Moosepox; and not a single suggestion of a cure. Please don't change anything.
I hope that you can agree with me that Moosepox is a thoroughly satisfactory disease. Without it, that is without all the memories that go back almost 60 years, life would be quite different for me today. So much of my life has been flavored by my association with the camp, that it is truly hard to imagine what it would be like today if our paths had not crossed. What would I do with my spare time? Where else could I have learned all that I learned at Flying Moose? What would life be like without the hundreds of friendships I have formed since 1928? Where else, and how else, could I have enjoyed managing, or pretending to manage, so many things? If you are one who also happens to suffer from Moosepox, I hope that these memories may have helped to soothe your pains. Reliving those memories is a far better medicine than any ointment or salve could ever be" (p. 145).
Daniel James (2000) splices together one, largely sequential (with topical sections afterward), Doña María's Story from many non-sequential interviews with her, but this is clearly not how María told it (p. 31). She tells her stories as mini parables, often as first person or as first-hand accounts. James notes that many of her stories are rehearsed and rehashed, in order to best punctuate a moral lesson (p. 231).
In Moosepox, Price does a similar thing, though perhaps less overtly. He tells stories that he has clearly honed and shared over and over before. His Quaker disposition shows through, not explicitly in any one story, but cumulatively through the collection of his thoughts and stories. Rather than make large claims about good and bad people, Price includes small statements in the context of his stories that "show rather than tell" his philosophies and morals stories even more subtly than parables. Yet they are evident, even in this passage, where he situates the camp road:
"Story has it that the sea captains of old, who lived in the neighborhood and beyond, used to bring their water casks up our road to Craig Pond to fill them before setting out on their long voyages. It must have been a long slow trip with a heavy load, but I am sure that it was worth it. If the dirt road has been in use for that length of time, it is no wonder that it looks so comfortably situated today. There are no uprooted stumps beside it, no cast off boulders, and no ragged banks where deep cuts were made. The people who first used this road lacked those wonderful modern machines which can hack a road through the wilderness leaving death and destruction along both sides. You might say that the road belongs. It has settled in" (ch. 3).
His ideology is clear, with words like "uprooted," "cast off," "ragged," and "death and destruction," but they are not sappy or in-your-face proselytizing. Compare it to this passage from Dudley describing one of its first directors:
"What sort of man was Chief? He was first of all a good man; he was a true Christian with a big heart. Kind, compassionate, and deeply concerned about others, he possessed the warmth of personality that endeared him to everyone who knew him" (p. 13).
One of the traditions of Camp Dudley was to "assign a specific number, starting at one, to each camper or staff member as they enrolled" (p. iii) -- although women were only assigned numbers beginning in 1982 (p. 158). Dudleyites hold their numbers as a sort of symbol of community, and refer to themselves by their number in order to locate themselves for others in the history of Camp Dudley. The four editors of Dudley were all prior campers (#2844, #3195, #4464, and #7405), and try to assure readers of their authority in the Preface "for the most part, each writer experienced his particular subject first-hand" (p. iii). They then split the book into sections that coincide roughly to each writer's time in camp. Unfortunately, the four voices impose a somewhat fractured feel to the story of the camp, which although it may reinforce what was probably a very distinct atmosphere about the camp under each of its directors, is distracting. The editors go on to scrub out all first-hand references to their individual times at Camp Dudley, and instead use a third-person voice to state events as objective fact. Perhaps as an attempt to erase bias, they even go so far as to arrange that director Willie Schmidt, the main force behind the production of the centennial book, does not write the chapter about his era as director.
Dudley portrays the "life" of a camp, but its voice is fractured and it doesn't speak with the passion and individuality of a person, and for reasons unaddressed in class, but still somehow important to me, that disqualifies it. It is a history, and yes, it is a site history, but it is not the history of one life, nor even of the editors' four lives, but it is an impersonal coagulation of research, constructed and compiled into an expressly non-fiction chronicle. Others who have contributed, beyond the editors, often get the most direct voice at places where their input is left fully quoted.
Moosepox, on the other hand, is written directly in the voice of one person whose involvement in Flying Moose Lodge spans most of its existence. It is easy for me to claim Moosepox as both a site history and a life history. It tells stories of the camp, but more than that, it tells Harrie B. Price III's stories of camp. As I read the stories he tells, I see myself in them because they represent my own stories of camp. Although earlier in the semester I joked about it being testimonio, after reading the transcripts in Doña María's Story, I can now argue seriously that it is.
Price does not describe the camp in an impersonal third person voice, but actively engages readers in an informal narrative tone as if all were sitting in the dim light of a campfire, sharing stories. Many chapters take on the quality of testimonio -- perhaps most notably "The Diagnosis" (p. 3-4) -- in which Price speaks for himself and for others afflicted by Moosepox:
"I suffer from a debilitating and incurable disease. No research foundation or national charity is dedicated to its eradication; and the disease has left me, and over a thousand other victims, facing increasing pain and suffering as the years progress. However, before I enlarge farther on the agonies that befall our small group, let me assure you that we collectively enjoy every moment of our affliction. This has become part of our lives, and it gives us strength as we face many of our problems.
We have not been attacked by an ordinary virus, but by a very special virulent type, which we have picked up over a long period of years as a result of our association with a small camp for boys in Maine. The disease is lingering, and in my case has done much to limit, and at the same time, expand my life over a period of some 60 years, with no end in sight. I refer, of course, to the scourge of Moosepox" (Ch. 1)
When Maria Roldán narrates the story of her life to Daniel James, she defines herself as a union representative at a meatpacking plant. She is an actor in a setting, and her role provides the primary meaning in her life. Just as in her function as a union representative, in her narration she speaks for herself and for a larger population. Harrie Price also defines his life within the context of FML: "What started out as summer employment, soon began to fill the days between vacations as well, and my case of Moosepox became more acute" (ch. 1).
Harrie B Price III began his involvement as a camper in 1928 when the camp was in its seventh year. He returned year after year as camper, counselor, and then owner/director in 1940, which he remained until his retirement in 1985. At this point, he began working on Moosepox, but remained involved in camp as an advisor to his son who took over the directorship. The book teems with his personality and voice in informal first person stories. It reads more as a human story than the story of a camp, but indeed the two had in many ways merged into one thing. He writes:
The summers I spent in Maine as a camper, a counselor, and as a camp director, have meant much to me personally. They have given me golden opportunities to make my own decisions, some of which were good, and some of which were not quite so good. I feel strongly that the events of those years, as well as the people involved in those events, should be recorded in some fashion, in hopes that they may bring even a fraction of the enjoyment that is mine, to all those who have shared those great years at Flying Moose. My children seem to think that I am approaching the age when I will forget all that has happened, or what is perhaps worse, lose all sense of proportion. Now is the time.
It's an amazing thing for me to learn more about other camps, to take my understanding and love of a place and expand it in the recognition that different places inspire similar responses for others. However, it is probably evident in this paper that I bring my own intentions and subjectivities to this review of these two camp histories. Had I spent the past ten years involved in the day-to-day operation of Camp Dudley, my bias might be quite different.
Let me spend a moment trying to even things out. Given the nature of Camp
Dudley, its size and scope, and the sheer number of directors -- who do indeed
direct much of the tone of a camp -- Camp Dudley: the First Hundred Years,
could not have been written as a testimonio. Likewise, it would have
been near impossible for Harrie Price, given the extent of his own personal
involvement in Flying Moose Lodge, to write a strictly chronological, and
implicitly objective account of it -- for it was not just a camp to him, just
as a "union representative" was not just a job for María
Roldán. Their hopes and dreams are wrapped up in these; they are the
stories of their life.
Hale, T., Jones, J., Keeler, M., & Schmidt, W. (1984). Camp Dudley: the first hundred years. Pownal, Vermont : Storey Communications.
James, D. (2000). Doña María's story: life history, memory, and political identity. Durham : Duke University Press.
Myerhoff, B. (1978). Number our days. New York : Simon and Schuster.
Price, H. B. III. (1988). A bad case of moosepox. self-published.
Wolcott, H. F. (2002). Sneaky kid and its aftermath: ethics and intimacy in fieldwork. Walnut Creek : AltaMira Press.
The final project for my Spring 2003 "Life History Theory and Methods" with Mary Louise Gomez
