The division of the use of recreational lands during the progressive era is traditionally viewed as a segregated space with upper class people using large places of natural beauty like national parks, many state parks, and city parks that are devoted to beauty or serenity and the working class utilizing parks for active recreational activities like baseball and swimming, where the scenery is typically valued second to the utility of the space.
However, there is evidence that the different classes were, in fact united in the desire to preserve Wisconsin’s more beautiful locations for the use of people in all classes and in fact the desire to make large areas of natural beauty assessable for the working class was a major justification for the creation of State Parks in Wisconsin. The different classes may have had different reasons for wanting state parks in Wisconsin, but they were united in their desire for a State Park System that would be accessible for everyone.
There is an interesting division that should be noted about why the working class and the middle and upper class were united in the desire for a State Park system to benefit the lower class. The middle and upper class desired a state park system as a refuge for the working class to rest and as a way of promoting progressive era ideals about the value of the outdoors for the working class. This was cited as one of the main needs for state parks.
The working class was often more interested in the economic benefit of tourism to their otherwise poor farming towns. They supported the development of a state park system as a way to draw in middle class tourists to stay in the inns they worked at, eat at their restaurants, and spend their vacationers money in their towns. The working class also benefited from the state park system by and continued the benefit of employment opportunity during the great depression. Wisconsin’s first state park has a unique history as an important place for labor movements throughout Wisconsin’s early history. It also has evidence that the working class supported the preservation of this beautiful and historic park. My research looks at the support for Interstate State Park as a working class park.
Wisconsin Rediscovered 