In the 1870s and 1880s, the first summer camps promised boys a chance to escape increasingly urban modern life. Roughing it would build character, and, as one early camp founder put it, save humanity from ‘dying of indoor-ness.’ The feeling that children should learn to build fires and shelters like the pre-civilized people they were. Summer camps flourished in the years that followed. In 1900 there were fewer than one hundred camps in the country. By 1918, there were more than 1,000. But as camps became more popular, their commitment to “natural” living faltered. Camps began to feature movies, radio, and tennis lessons. One leader of the camp movement complained in the 1930s that “Every activity we can find to fit into the daily program is put in, but there is a notable lack of camping—living out in the open—the very thing that gave the movement its birth.”