How the outdoor recreation industry markets towards our identities

Sometimes it’s nice to take a trip into nature and step away from the hustle and bustle of daily routines.

But before many outdoor enthusiasts hit the trail, they load up with gear: proper boots, a warm jacket, a sturdy backpack and maybe a hat and gloves. It could  cost hundreds of dollars before taking the first step on the trail.

University of Colorado-Denver history professor Rachel S. Gross told WPR that the items an outdoors person purchases can reflect their identity in the wilderness.  

That’s the focus of her new book, “Shopping All The Way To The Woods: How The Outdoor Industry Sold Nature To America.”

Gross joined WPR’s “Wisconsin Today” to share the history of outdoor recreation marketing and some of its Wisconsin ties.

The following interview was edited for clarity and brevity.

Kate Archer Kent: Why is the stuff that we take outdoors so defining of who we are?

Rachel Gross: Part of what this book does is trace how people started to attach a big part of their identity — their sense of self — to the goods that they acquired on their way to the woods.

In the late 19th century, at the outset of the outdoor recreation industry, guidebooks and practitioners started to teach these lessons about how to acquire the right things in order to get back to the woods the right way. Those lessons are still with us in many ways today.

KAK: One of the early clothing symbols you discuss in the book is buckskin. Can you tell us the story behind buckskin and this Wisconsin man, Ruel Garnich Baldwin, taking his deer hide to a Bad River Chippewa woman to make a jacket?

RG: When this young man hunted a deer, he was able to take the hide and have a Native American woman, who had the expertise, transform it into a fringed buckskin jacket.

The records around it are a part of the Wisconsin Historical Society’s collections. This is important because it’s emblematic of early outdoor recreation culture. Guidebooks of the late 19th century told readers, if you want to get back to nature the right way, you must make all of your gear yourself. 

Young white men like Baldwin, who were eager to be a part of this activity, didn’t necessarily have the skills to back up that kind of claim, and so they relied on the labor and expertise of local native women in order to transform the hides that they had gathered into the jackets that they so coveted. 

KAK: How did women fit into this story of outdoor recreation?

RG: Companies like Abercrombie & Fitch, which outfitted outdoor recreationists in the early 20th century, struggled with the notion of having women appear with inappropriate feminine norms and styles, while still being able to access their activities. This had to do with the masculine nature of outdoor recreation culture, a legacy that is also still with us today.

I think companies and the consumers that purchased from them were navigating this idea that the outdoors was a space for men to prove themselves and their power, virility and strength, and women finding a place within that culture was a challenge.

KAK: How does military surplus start to find its way into the outdoor goods industry?

RG: There’s a great Wisconsin example of this story. Fontana, the Madison outdoor retail store, got its start in the late 1940s as a military surplus store. It later transformed into a focus exclusively on outdoor recreation and clothing.

But like so many stores all over the country, it was this flood of military surplus in the immediate post World War II period that led to the creation of outdoor stores that were affordable and accessible to millions of Americans for the first time.

KAK: Let’s turn our focus to Gore-Tex, the waterproof, breathable material used so widely in outdoor clothing. Gore-Tex shells contained the forever chemicals known as PFAS. How has the outdoor industry reckoned with efforts to remove these harmful chemicals from their products?

RG: There are innovations to be had when it comes to new technologies and new materials that aren’t plastics-based. However, another big part of the industry’s response to this question that you’re pointing toward is ways of addressing the culture of consumption itself, recognizing that it might be impossible to produce things that don’t have a negative impact on the earth or on human health, and therefore addressing this issue of buying more all the time. Always going shopping on the way to the woods is the next place that the industry is going to turn its attention.

KAK: Does being more aware of how the outdoor industry markets to us change the way we experience the outdoors?

RG: This book is not trying to excoriate the outdoor industry. The takeaway isn’t “Don’t buy gear.” I, myself, am an outdoor lover and a gear head. I recognize that many items are necessary for comfort or safety when it comes to participating in outdoor activities.

Instead, I think this research pushes us to consider more deeply how we have come to accept that purchases are tied up with our identity. 

We could decouple that, recognizing that buying one pair of socks in green versus brown doesn’t necessarily have to define who I am as an outdoors person or my level of expertise.

I believe that understanding these deeper histories can lead us to become more critical consumers. Even if that doesn’t have an immediate impact on what I’m including on my packing list, I think that that level of reflection has a broader benefit.