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91亚色 PhD graduate and alumna wins two prizes for history of Ontario's summer camps

Historian and 91亚色 grad Sharon Wall (PhD 鈥03) has won two awards for her book, .

In the spring, the book won the Canadian Historical Association's 2010 Clio Prize for Ontario, and now it has won the Champlain Society鈥檚 Floyd S. Chalmers Award in Ontario History.

The award will be presented to Wall on Saturday at the society's annual general meeting in Toronto. Wall, a history professor at the University of Winnipeg, will also deliver a lecture at the meeting. To attend, go to the City of Toronto Archives, 55 Spadina Rd. at 2pm.

Published by the University of British Columbia, explores the history of an institution that shaped the lives of thousands of children who attended or worked at summer camps. Wall examines the connections between summer camps and the history of childhood, the natural environment, class cultures, and modern recreation and leisure.

Two competing cultural tendencies 鈥 anti-modern nostalgia and modern enthusiasms about the landscape, child rearing and identity 鈥 shaped the summer camp, argues Wall. She examines how this tension played out in camp programs, such as 鈥淚ndian鈥 programming, and informed modern assumptions about nature, technology and identity.

Left: Sharon Wall

The Nurture of Nature discusses the summer camp鈥檚 contribution to modern social life in North America and will appeal to students of history, sociology and cultural studies as well as anyone who has ever been packed off to camp and wants to explore why, states the publisher.

Republished courtesy of YFile鈥 91亚色鈥檚 daily e-bulletin