The History of Summer Vacation

Have you ever wondered how the idea of vacation got started? Well, it turns out that it all comes down to a single day...in 1869. Watch the video to find out how Americans learned to treat the summer like their plaything.

A young preacher named Bill Murray had begun a series of speeches in Boston. Speaking on stage in a music hall, this young man spoke of the natural beauty sitting untouched in the nearby Adirondack mountains, describing i t as “magnificent scenery which makes this wilderness a rival to Switzerland.” And it was in these speeches that Murray suggested something revolutionary: the notion that a trip to nature could be done for…fun. In other words: vacation.

What Was It Like Before This?

Most Americans thought of nature as an obstacle: as a thing to be overpowered. Indeed, 1869 marks the same year as the first transcontinental railroad. But with Murray’s book, Adventures in Wilderness, fishing and hiking were transformed into antidotes for the unnatural urban life.

This idea of vacating the city had been known in Europe since the Romantic era, but America had not followed suit. But after the U.S. went through its industrial revolution, and let’s not forget its Civil War, Murray’s book found a large audience amongst exhausted city dwellers. Readers enjoyed the idea of pure life in the Adirondacks with emerald-covered lakes that gleamed like jewels, viewing it as the perfect response to disease infested cities full of unhappy citizens. Murray noted that a new train line could transport one from the city to nature within 36-hours, resulting in ten editions of the book within its first four months.

What Did That First Summer Look Like?

Aspiring travelers–eager beavers–were called Murray’s Rush by newspapers, and all flocked to the Adirondacks with a copy of Adventures in the Wilderness gripped in their hands. One historian noted that it was a human stampede, which more or less flew in the face of Murray’s claim about the area.

Unfortunately for these new visitors, 1869 was just about the wettest and coldest summer in Adirondack history. City dwellers were dangerously unprepared. They used canoes as shelter from the rain. They ran from bear poop. The mosquitoes were abysmal that year due to the late rains. The handful of inns throughout the area, which were built for a small number of hunters grew overwhelmed. One hotel charged patrons hourly to sleep on their pool table. Locals profited as guides for all these urbanites, but they had no experience, resulting in getting lost and sleeping in foul swamps.

Murray’s Fools

Newspapers cemented this early history of summer vacation by labeling these travelers as ‘Murray’s Fools”. The book, it should be noted, came close to April 1st. The author was ridiculed by angry, frustrated, and disappointed travelers. They claimed he embellished the glamor of nature. Still others worried that the woods were becoming far too diverse. A well-known writer of the time, Thomas Bangs Thorpe, described Murray as the murderer of helpless invalids; that he had ruined the summers of countless city folks.

Still others complained about the shocking presence of women in nature. Thorpe wrote that the woods were no place for the gentler sex and suggested that traveling men should “let the ladies out of the woods.”

The Rise of Summer Vacation

By 1875, the Adirondacks were in full swing. There were hundreds of hotels and encampments in the mountains. There was a full service stagecoach that shook travelers along mountain passes from the train stations. There were steamboats upon the lakes.

The richest families on the East Coast–Vanderbilts, Rockefellers, etc.--constructed their own private camps, away from the throng of ordinary folk. And thus was born the notion that during the summer months, people should vacate their urban lives and flock to the country. Soon, the word vacation replaced the British idea of holiday, and the idea was born.