ITEM DESCRIPTION
Wonderful, substantial mid-1940s Camp Arcadia and White Mountain Camp songbook, an internally produced typescript compilation of camp songs used at the famous girls’ camp on Pleasant Lake in Casco/Otisfield, Maine, together with material for White Mountain Camp for Boys on nearby Sebago Lake. Founded in the 1910s and guided for decades by Dr. George L. Meylan and his family, Camp Arcadia became one of Maine’s classic summer camps for girls, noted for its strong trip program and emphasis on the outdoors, while Meylan earlier founded White Mountain Camp and helped shape the modern organized camping movement. This thick, working songbook preserves dozens of campfire standards, parodies, alma maters, hiking songs, and counselor-show numbers as they were actually sung by campers and staff in the late 1930s and 1940s.
The text is mimeographed or carbon-copied from typewritten originals onto thin pastel sheets, primarily blue and pink paper with some cream leaves toward the end, all punched and secured by two brass fasteners through card-weight inner covers and an outer textured blue paper wrapper. Pagination visible in the images runs at least from Page 1 through Page 202, suggesting a very large collection of material built up over a number of seasons. Many songs are specific to Camp Arcadia life: “Oh Camp Arcadia,” “Remember,” “Rangler Song,” “Willie’s Song,” “Just Come to Camp Arcadia,” “We’ve Been Out on Lake Sebago,” and a group of “White Mountain Camp Songs” such as “Way Up on Lake Sebago,” “White Mountain – Arcadia,” “In Those Dear White Mountain Days,” and “Stand Up and Cheer.” Other pieces are credited in the text to staff or counselors, including several humorous and theatrical songs by William Bartlett Chase of White Mountain Camp and welcome songs and camp-fair pieces attributed to Anne Watson and others, reflecting the creative culture of the Arcadia and White Mountain communities during the World War II era.
Campers and counselors also adapted popular American tunes of the period. There are lyrics keyed to familiar melodies such as “Give My Regards to Broadway” (“Give My Regards to Casco”), and a “Tune: Let It Snow – 1947” camp welcome, along with sections titled “Welcome Song – 1939” with a revised 1942 version, counselors’ show material dated 1943, and many other pieces that anchor the compilation firmly in the later 1930s and 1940s. Together these songs document nightly campfire rituals, rainy-day skits, inter-camp competitions, and Sunday evening programs at two influential Maine camps, and they offer rich primary material for camp historians, scholars of girls’ culture and outdoor education, and Arcadia or White Mountain alumnae tracing the traditions they remember from their own summers on Pleasant and Sebago Lakes.
Physical condition is good overall for a fragile, roughly 80-year-old working camp songbook, but it does show the expected age and handling wear from repeated use in lodges and around campfires. The textured blue outer paper wraps are worn, creased, and rubbed, with soft corners, small edge nicks and chips (especially at the lower front corner), short tears and stress lines around the spine fold, and some small abrasions and label or tape ghosting at the upper front where a title strip or name tag once seems to have been affixed. The cream inner card covers are also noticeably creased and wrinkled from handling, with short closed tears and small chips along the fore-edge and lower margin and a few light spots or stains near the edges.
The text block is held to the covers by two metal fasteners; these show typical oxidation and bending, but the pages remain tightly attached overall and hang together as a single unit without any obvious large sections missing. Individual pages show light toning consistent with mid-century duplicator paper, scattered foxing specks or ink flecks, mild edge wear and corner folds, occasional short tears at the punch holes, and the usual show-through and faint offsetting from one side of a sheet to the other; a few leaves have small handling stains or smudges in the margins, yet the typed lyrics remain generally clear and legible throughout.
Make sure to see the photos above for complete details.
202 single-sided pages.
Measures approximately 9 inches tall by 6 inches wide.
KEYWORDS
Camp Arcadia, Arcadia girls camp, White Mountain Camp, Sebago Lake camp, Pleasant Lake Maine, Casco Maine history, Otisfield Maine history, Maine summer camp ephemera, 1940s camp songbook, mimeograph songbook, typewritten lyrics, girls camp songs, boys camp songs, White Mountain Arcadia songs, Way Up On Lake Sebago, We’ve Been Out On Lake Sebago, Oh Camp Arcadia, Remember Camp Arcadia, Willie’s Song, Welcome Song 1939, Let It Snow 1947 tune, Give My Regards to Casco, William Bartlett Chase, Anne Watson, Meylan family, Dr George L Meylan, Juliette Meylan Henderson, American Camping Association early history, Maine organized camping, Pleasant Lake outdoor recreation, intercamp competitions Maine, counselor show scripts, campfire songs, hiking songs, canoeing songs, swimming dock songs, White Mountain camp traditions, girls outdoor education history, New England camp culture, World War II era camps, 1930s 1940s youth culture, gender history summer camps, American popular song parodies, Broadway song parodies, Let It Snow parody lyrics, Give My Regards to Broadway parody, Lake Sebago recreation history, Maine vacationland ephemera, vintage camp archives, private camp manuscript, unique one of a kind camp document, rare Maine camp songbook, collectible summer camp memorabilia, New England lakes region history, archival primary source, social history of adolescence, nostalgic camp memories, camper counselor traditions, camp alma mater, camp fight songs, rustic lodge entertainment, humanities research source, vintage youth music, American song history, sheet music substitute, manuscript song collection, institutional history Camp Arcadia, Pleasant Lake shoreline camps, Maine tourism history, antique paper Americana, midcentury school and camp songbooks
