Join us Tuesday, September 21st at 6:30 pm at Main as Dr. Sarah J. Eikleberry discusses Iowa's Segregated Summer Camps for Youth from 1925-1950. Black middle-class reformers and professionals worked to create and safeguard childhood experiences in Iowa during the American Interwar era.  This presentation explores some of the ways Black communities worked to carve out space for their children through the American summer camp movement.  These racially, age, and gender-segregated environments provided a week of structured and supervised recreation for young people who were still not welcomed in many municipal swimming pools, soda fountains, roller rinks, or dance halls.  An extension of the race-conscious branches, YWCA and YMCA summer camps near Des Moines and Okoboji, Iowa provided opportunities for both outdoor work and play, an escape from sweltering city pavement, and satisfied the mutual desires of both adults and children.   

Dr. Sarah J. Eikleberry is an Associate Professor and Assistant Chair in the Department of Kinesiology and an affiliate faculty in the Women and Gender Studies program at St. Ambrose University in Davenport, IA.  Dr. Eikleberry advises the LGBTQ+ student group, PRISM, coordinates the Safe Zone program at St. Ambrose, and is a member of the advisory board of Iowa Safe Schools.  Working across departments and programs, she works with a variety of aspiring professionals looking to make a positive impact in the educational, allied health, and social justice fields.  Her research explores identity politics in professional, intercollegiate, and community sport and recreation.  Her more recent work interrogates the ways in which women use physical activity to recruit younger populations into social movements.  In 2021, she worked with other community organizers to create a political non-profit, Take Back, an organization working to increase voter engagement and the development of both a digital and non-digital neighborhood network.

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Snipe-Hunts and Moonlit Hikes: Iowa’s Segregated Summer Camps for Youth, 1925-1950
Tue, Sep 21, 2021 6:30 PM - 8:00 PM (CDT)

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