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No escape to nature is complete without a trip to an outdoor recreational store or a browse through online offerings. This is the irony of the American outdoor experience: visiting wild spaces supposedly untouched by capitalism first requires shopping. With consumers spending billions of dollars on clothing and equipment each year as they seek out nature, the American outdoor sector grew over the past 150 years from a small collection of outfitters to an industry contributing more than 2 percent of the nation’s economic output…read more.
“A great read for any self-respecting outdoor gear junkie. I particularly enjoyed the history of gear from the buckskin era of the nineteenth century through the WWII surplus era of the ’50s and ’60s.”—Steve Barker, cofounder, Eagle Creek Adventure Travel
“With lively prose and fascinating research, Rachel Gross opens readers’ eyes to the corporate history undergirding America’s culture of outdoor recreation and their mutual interdependence. A must-read!”—Annie Gilbert Coleman, author of Ski Style: Sport and Culture in the Rockies
Rachel S. Gross 