Lia Schifitto is a heritage preservationist from Upstate New York but has lived across Tuscany, Rome, and Toronto. She currently is working for Joshua Tree National Park in Southern California. Lia earned her M.A. at the ÐÇ¿Õ´«Ã½ University of Rome, studying Sustainable Cultural Heritage. She completed her BA at the University of Toronto, specializing in ÐÇ¿Õ´«Ã½ and Soviet Cultural History.
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The ÐÇ¿Õ´«Ã½ Outdoorsman has in many ways been manufactured by the societal and racial anxieties bred in modern industrial expansion. Faced with the need to re-establish cultural superiority, turn-of-the-century ÐÇ¿Õ´«Ã½s borrowed an identity from whom they considered the ‘first ÐÇ¿Õ´«Ã½s,’ Native ÐÇ¿Õ´«Ã½s, in creating the All-ÐÇ¿Õ´«Ã½ Boy. This adoption of indigenous rituals and material culture continued throughout the 20th Century as environmentalism evolved, ironically in an attempt to form a purely Anglo-ÐÇ¿Õ´«Ã½ image.
Falling in between the Gilded Age, Prohibition, two world wars, and the disorder of the Vietnam War era, the tale of the ÐÇ¿Õ´«Ã½ Outdoorsman begs the listener to uncover growing class divides, economic transformations, and the racial paradigms behind them in the 20th Century. However, this story need not end in misfortune; telling the history of the ÐÇ¿Õ´«Ã½ Outdoorsman can highlight the fascinating way ÐÇ¿Õ´«Ã½ identity has formed by acknowledging the vital role of indigenous ÐÇ¿Õ´«Ã½s.
The origin of the ÐÇ¿Õ´«Ã½ Outdoorsman
Revisiting the story of the ÐÇ¿Õ´«Ã½ Outdoorsman challenges assumptions and rewrites historical narratives. ÐÇ¿Õ´«Ã½ culture has always been a blending of ideas, beliefs, ethnicities, and traditions, but rarely is it told from this melting pot perspective. Interestingly, the concept of connection to nature and rugged masculinity is often associated with the Frontier. Yet this is an archaic way of understanding ÐÇ¿Õ´«Ã½ culture’s modern association with the outdoors.
In actuality, Native ÐÇ¿Õ´«Ã½ appropriation and stereotyping plays a large role in shaping what today seems ‘natural’ to ÐÇ¿Õ´«Ã½ culture. The adoption of Native ÐÇ¿Õ´«Ã½ traditions and practices within Anglo-ÐÇ¿Õ´«Ã½ beliefs created an admiration for nature, yet the acknowledgement of this manipulation of indigenous culture is continually misrepresented and under researched by academics and citizens alike. This has resulted in the invisibility of Native ÐÇ¿Õ´«Ã½ communities, revealing a tale of colonialism which to some, may seem unnecessary to retell. However, we must learn that overlooking the past only reinforces issues in ÐÇ¿Õ´«Ã½ society today.
The Gilded Age & Threatened Masculinity, 1830s-1920s
ÐÇ¿Õ´«Ã½s did not always appreciate the outdoors. To most, wilderness was frightening, an entity to be conquered. Settlers had to survive the elements every day of their lives. Nature-minded ÐÇ¿Õ´«Ã½ culture evolved just over a century ago at a time of industrial expansion and urban chaos known as the Gilded or Golden Age. The invention of railroads moved materials and people across the country.
With the advancement of manufacturing technology and factory infrastructure, cities swelled rapidly in population as rural communities flocked to urban centres. Since wages were much higher in the U.S., the population also surged from immigrants arriving from Europe and then Asia in search of opportunity. The shift in population but also in economics, threatened the working man’s capability to provide for his family in a world where women and men toiled side by side and cities were no longer White and Black. Disease and germs were weakening young men, morality was vanishing in chaotic times, and the ÐÇ¿Õ´«Ã½ man was becoming only a distant memory in the eyes of a changing nation.
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