Consumption in the Adirondacks: Sportsman's Literature and the Curative Climate

In the second half of the nineteenth century, tuberculosis patients flocked to remote corners of the United States, seeking refuge from the oppressive air of industrial cities and hoping for the health benefits of a curative... [ view full abstract ]

In the second half of the nineteenth century, tuberculosis patients flocked to remote corners of the United States, seeking refuge from the oppressive air of industrial cities and hoping for the health benefits of a curative climate. From the arid deserts of New Mexico to the boreal forests of northern New York, a cure industry emerged and left lasting impacts on the cultural landscapes of those regions. Literary culture, especially sportsman’s literature, played a powerful role in debates about the curative potential of America’s wilderness regions. Taking the Adirondack Mountains of New York as a case study, this paper examines a few popular works of regional literature, including William H.H. Murray’s Adventuresin the Wilderness (1869) and George Washington Sears’s Forest and Streamletters (1880s), along with some relevant visual artifacts, in order to illustrate the relationship between the nineteenth-century cure industry and the culture of outdoor recreation. Not only did sportsman’s literature influence environmental attitudes underlying middle-class Americans’ belief in a wilderness cure, effectively training male readers to seek an outdoor experience that would renew their health and, simultaneously, their masculinity; it also commodified the Adirondack climate and enabled the rise of the cure industry.