Albany Public Library and The Adirondack Experience welcome Connor Williams who will share “Greetings from the Great Camps: The History of the Adirondack Vacation.” Williams will discuss the forces, movements, moments and people that led to the nexus of wilderness, exertion, rejuvenation, and comfort that still all define the Adirondack region today.

In 1850 the Adirondack region remained, literally, a blank spot on the map—unsurveyed, uncharted, and largely unorganized. Most white Americans saw the Adirondacks as a place so desolate that—to quote an early document, “by reason of Mountains, Swampes (sic), and Drowned Lands is impassible and uninhabited.”

Yet by 1900 the Adirondacks hosted elaborate summer estates for the wealthiest families in America—including Vanderbilts, Rockefellers, Carnegies, Whitneys, and Morgans. Theodore Roosevelt actually inherited the Presidency while on a midnight buckboard ride through the heart of the park. For more than a century since, the Adirondacks have remained a famous destination drawing magnates, celebrities, and everyday Americans. Hikers, hunters, canoe campers, power oaters, elites, and environmentalists (and many combinations thereof) who all look forward to their visits and vacations in “the ADK.”

How did this transition occur? Why did it occur? What forces led to the development of the region during the late 19th Century, and how does Adirondack history interact with American history more broadly? And just what was a “Great Camp,” anyway?

Join American Historian and Year-Round Adirondacker Connor Williams for “Greetings from the Great Camps: The History of the Adirondack Vacation.” Williams, who serves as Lead Historian at Great Camp Sagamore and teaches at Middlebury College, will discuss the forces, movements, moments and people that led to the nexus of wilderness, exertion, rejuvenation, and comfort that still all define the Adirondack region today.