Outdoor activities: From tourist destinations to suburban amenities.
Résumé
As early as the 19th century, the development of outdoor activities was closely linked to the development of tourism of the areas where these activities could be practiced. The adepts of the companies managing outdoor sports and tourism were akin, essentially recruited from the most prosperous fringes of the population. Over the decades, however, these activities started attracting an ever broader public taking advantage of new facilities (scouting, summer camps, half-day school outings) and technical set-ups (campsites) which made them more accessible. Indeed, after the Second World War, many young people were requesting outdoor sporting activities.
We shall investigate two complementary measures which, during the Glorious Thirties, contributed in creating places that would make the activities accessible to a wider fringe of the population in the context of an overall democratization of sports practice: on the one hand, the setting-up of camps for young people near sports sites (mountain and lake / sea); on the other, the development of recreational parks near large city centres, in particular in the area near Paris. We intend to demonstrate that the development of easier accessibility to the practice sites involves ever more extensive amenities and bringing urban populations closer together. In parallel we shall deal with the question of the identity of outdoor physical activities. To carry out this study, we relied on the archives of associations supported by the Ministry of State for Sports (Union nautique française, Union nationale des clubs de montagne, Union des centres de plein air), as well as on archives from the government bodies themselves.