The chapters discuss the songs’ use of humor, how children acquire language from songs (and develop motor skills, for songs that use gestures), musical styles, and other concepts. Each chapter looks specifically at one song that illustrates a theme, along with variant lyrics, but not,
surprisingly and disappointingly, the sheet music. That said, Averill provides a treasure trove of raw data about American summer-camp music in the mid-20th century, and she effectively illustrates how the songs moved seamlessly between musical genres. She points out the influences of 19th century religious "camp" revivalism, European immigrants and their tradition of communal singing, the songs of Tin Pan Alley and World War I, and the folk revival
the 1960s. The book also demonstrates how singing was used to foster communal feelings among campers; at other times, it allowed them to express subversive humor, thus pushing adolescent boundaries.
Full text available here. Copyright problems made it impossible to include music for all the case studies, so none were provided.
Amazon Five Stars, August 31, 2014
It was good to reminisce camp songs. Didn't know there were so many versions of each song.
March 30, 2014 at 9:36 PM
I just stumbled across your site when I was trying to find the location of Camp Wintaka, a Camp Fire camp in California. My camp was Yenis Hante in California. We sang all the time. My essay "Singing at Camp Yenis Hante" was in "Camping Magazine" in November 2009.
Her memories of camp singing can be found here
Songs of a summer night: Camp can-do
Santa Fe New Mexican
August 8, 2014 at 5:00 am
Jennifer went to day camps in Illinois. Her article appeared in the book section of Pasatiempo with some wonderful camp photographs from the Library of Congress.
Jeannie Wiley Wolf
What fun to sing around the campfire
July 18, 2014
Jeannie was a song leader in 4-H in Ohio. Her article appeared in the Findlay newspaper. Findlay is the home of Camp Glen, one of the camps featured in the book.
University of Oregon
Nathan Georgitis has posted an announcement on the university archives web site. Research by undergraduates was used in the book. See it here.
University website listed Camp songs as a new acquisition in December, 2014.
Kalamazoo Public Library
The Michigan library announced it added Camp songs to its local history collection in January, 2015.