Snipe-Hunts and Moonlit Hikes: Iowa’s Segregated Summer Camps for Youth, 1925-1950 at the Davenport Public Library
Join us Tuesday, September 21st at 6:30 pm as Dr. Sarah J. Eikleberry discusses Iowa’s Segregated Summer Camps for Youth from 1925-1950. Black middle-class reformers and professionals worked to create and safeguard childhood experiences in Iowa during the American Interwar era. This presentation explores some of the ways Black communities worked to carve out space for their children through 
the American summer camp movement. These racially, age, and gender-segregated environments provided a week of structured and supervised recreation for young people who were still not welcomed in many municipal swimming pools, soda fountains, roller rinks, or dance halls. An extension of the race-conscious branches, YWCA and YMCA summer camps near Des Moines and Okoboji, Iowa provided opportunities for both outdoor work and play, an escape from the sweltering city pavement, and satisfied the mutual desires of both adults and children.
This program is scheduled to be held in person at the Main Library (321 N. Main St.) and virtually.
To attend in person, please register here: https://davenportlibrary.libcal.com/event/8021240.
To attend virtually, please register here: https://davenportlibrary.libcal.com/event/8296280.
Virtual registrants will receive an email with the GoToMeeting link and access code.
Dr. Sarah J. Eikleberry is an Associate Professor and Assistant Chair in the Department of Kinesiology and an affiliate faculty in the Women and Gender Studies program at St. Ambrose University in Davenport, IA.
This event is FREE and open to the public. For more information visit www.davenportlibrary.com or call the library at (563) 326-7832.
