summer camp

summer camp, any combined recreational and educational facility designed to acquaint urban children with outdoor life. The earliest camps were started in the United States about 1885 when reaction to increased urbanization led to various back-to-nature movements. These attempts at rediscovering the outdoors, plus long summer vacations, led to the development of summer camps, which were at first exclusively for boys. Camps for girls date from about 1900, and since that time coeducational camps have...