New Paths Toward a History of Pennsylvania Outdoor Recreation
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Abstract
In his study of nineteenth-century southwestern Pennsylvania, historian Scott Martin describes leisure as "a contested cultural space, in which ideas about ethnicity, class, and gender were articulated and developed." Studies of outdoor recreation, a specific type of leisure taking place in natural settings, are valuable to historians of Pennsylvania for what they reveal about the ways groups chose to spend their free time and the implications for the state's environmental, social, and political history. While outdoor recreation of various forms has always been a salient feature of life, the acceleration of industrialization and economic growth during the second half of the nineteenth century brought many Americans increased time and disposable income to spend on pursing various forms of recreation. As we know, this trend has continued through the twentieth and twenty-first centuries to the point where outdoor recreation drives a multibillion-dollar industry that annually services more than 159 million recreationists.
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New Perspectives on the Environmental History of the Mid-Atlantic
Pennsylvania History is the official journal of the Pennsylvania Historical Association, and copyright remains with PHA as the publisher of this journal.