Hey, can you take my picture?

This is a question that wasn’t always thrown around so casually; after all, there used to be a lot more involved in capturing an image than just the simple push of a button that it is nowadays. For a very long time, the request to immortalize your image demanded the skill of an oil painter and carefully still patience from you. And even after the birth of photographic technology, the task still demanded that the subject of a picture remain quite still for quite a long time.

It may be a surprise to find out that the history of the camera goes back all the way to the days of the ancient Greeks (or possibly even further back than that!) with the Camera Obscura. It was Aristotle who first recorded a natural phenomenon he noticed in which images appear inverted when cast through a tiny hole into darkened enclosures. This natural phenomenon, the Camera Obscura, has been a point of interest for many years.
Announcements of photographic technology weren’t made public until 1839, however, a French inventor named Joseph Nicéphore Niépce began experimenting with photography out of his own personal interests in 1816.

It was an entire decade later that he was able to produce the first semi-successful photograph. He coated a piece of paper with sliver chloride to use for the photograph. In the chemistry world, silver chloride is known for its crafty conversion to silver when illuminated or exposed to heat. It darkens when exposed to light. He placed the paper in his darkened enclosure and…voila…. As you can see in this shot outside his window, the results needed some improvements.

Before Mr. Niépce, could produce crisper results from his photographic experiments, a new process came along called daguerreotypy that took just as much effort and time to produce an image, but it did so with much more clarity and the subjects of photographs only had to sit still for a maximum of five minutes but as little as half a minute. This method only lasted about 15 years, however, until it was outdated by newer, cheaper processes that produced even clearer and more readily-viewable pictures.

Starting as a low-tech wooden box with a hole in it, what have come to be known as cameras transformed into ‘handheld’ picture-taking computers! From disposable to digital, you can find great cameras for your summer adventures right here at Everything Summer Camp. Treasure your camp memories forever in our fantastic Three Cheers Photo Book or the appropriate Summer Camp Photo Frame. Check it all out right here and, as always, thanks for reading!

- John

What’s up, Campers?!

At Everything Summer Camp, we’re the home of C&N Footlockers so, of course, we pride ourselves the most on our traditional (as well as our innovative Designer) trunks. And we’re also proud to offer our Wheel Away System—the easiest way to transport your camp trunk.

These large, 4″ PVC wheels are a revolutionary solution for summer campers who have struggled with a fully-packed footlocker. But camp trunk transportation isn’t the first thing that the wheel has revolutionized! Let’s take a look at the origins of this round invention!

Contrary to popular opinion, the wheel was not invented with transportation in mind. It wasn’t invented by cavemen either. It was the ancient Sumerians, actually—one of the earliest civilizations in recorded history—and they invented it roughly 3500 BC.

The first wheels were flat disks made of either wood or clay that was left out to bake in the sun. If not for transportation, what were these wheels used for? They were potter’s wheels—rotated by hand and used for shaping clay into rounded pieces of cookware, vases, and other pieces of ceramic art.

The wheel was very useful in the world of pottery, but it would be another 300 years until people realized the full potential of this invention. Wheelbarrows were one of the first wheeled vessels which then gave way to a flood of coming inventions on wheels.

The plow followed soon after the wheelbarrow, but it wasn’t until the wheel found its home underneath a chariot that the transportation train started moving. Wheels have been used for purposes besides transportation since 3000 BC like converting energy in watermills and creating a delightful ride as a Ferris Wheel, but transportation is still its main thing.

Wheels started as objects made of clay and wood, but nowadays, they’re commonly made from rubber as we see on our motor vehicles and bicycles. Some other modern wheels are made of hard plastics like skateboard wheels as well as the removable beauties that pop on and off of our Wheel Away System. Let it roll! And, as always, thanks for reading!

 - John

Hey, Humans!

Since before our species was even fully developed, we’ve figured out communication methods that have allowed us to take a thought in our own mind and plant it in someone else’s. An invaluable tool, communication is the key to civilization and society as we know it.

In the advent of the smartphone and widespread instant messaging via texting, trending emojis have only grown in popularity since their initial creation in the late 90’s. The first 180 emojis were designed by a man named Shigetaka Kurita in Japan between 1998 and 1999 while working on a mobile Internet platform.

This is when emojis as we know them came to be, but I like to think that their history goes back longer ago than 1998—after all, this isn’t the first time people have conveyed thoughts and ideas through pictorial means. The last time we did that was at least 5000 years ago when the Ancient Egyptians developed their hieroglyphics.

The Egyptians put meaning to these pictures and used them to express specific words, sounds, or describe something. They even built it into their system that the same symbol can take on different meanings in different contexts—much like the English language does, assigning multiple meanings to the same word.

It was actually the Egyptian hieroglyphics that led to the first alphabets. The inventors based their ideas off of hieroglyphics, but instead of using full pictures, they had the idea to just use symbols, finding the method to be much quicker for writing as well as reading. Immediate neighbors like the Phoenicians and Hebrews caught on and developed their own.

Written language has taken us to the eloquent heights of Homer, Shakespeare, Twain, and Rowling (J.K.) and done what hieroglyphics could never do. But perhaps we got rid of them too quickly. That would explain our return in the form of emojis. They really are quite convenient—words feel a bit cumbersome when all you want to do is show your happiness about something.

We embrace the emoji trend at Everything Summer Camp with cute and fun (and funny) camp trunks, plush pillows, storage cubes, and decals. You can read more about them on this previous Blog post and check out these expressive products on our website. As always thanks for reading, Camp Fans!

- John

Hey, Summer Campers!

We’re sure to offer Choose Your Own Adventure Books for the simple fact that kids—whether they’re bookworms or not—devour these books like candy! The fourth-bestselling series for kids ever published, Choose Your Own Adventure books give kids interactivity with choices that lead to different outcomes. But how did this great concept for books come to be?

Well, it all started at summer camp...

Ray Montgomery worked with his wife, Shannon Gilligan. Knowing the importance of experiential learning, they introduced their boys, Anson and Ramsey, to the world of summer camp on Lake Champlain! Though Ray never did attend summer camp as a camper, he became a camp counselor at the famous summer camp of Pine Island in Maine.  

It was there that Ray first realized that interaction in education was essential to helping kids learn and read. After his days as a counselor, he established his own summer school to introduce kids to similar activities that he imparted at Pine Island.

Devoting a great deal of time and effort to studying the benefits of experiential learning and game theory, Ray eventually came across the idea for books that, in his words, put kids “in the driver’s seat.” Choose Your Own Adventure Books are the only books where the plotline depends on choices that the reader makes. Growing since their start in 1979 check out titles from this series for yourself!

Escape to worlds of intriguing and interactive tales in science fiction, fantasy, and adventure where the ending of the story depends on decisions that YOU make! Then, ‘reread’ the story making different decisions and the story’s outcome will turn out entirely different! Perfect for rainy days and reading before bed, have a look through our excellent selection of the adventures in this book series. And, as always, thanks for reading.

- John

Hey, History Buffs!

We enjoy learning about the histories of many different things on this Blog, but most of all, we like looking into the stories of all the different pieces of camping gear and other camp supplies that we offer on our online shop. And today, we’ll be looking into the history of First-Aid Kits.

First-Aid Kits are compact containers of medical supplies used to deliver treatment in times when a doctor cannot be reached. First-Aid supplies typically include disposable sterile gloves, an assortment of bandages and dressings, two sterile eye dressings, tweezers, and safety pins.

They’re extremely handy to have around, but there was a time when they didn’t exist.

Before First-Aid Kits were sold in the market, people had to fend for themselves when it came to traveling with the proper supplies that might be needed as well as knowing how to assist an injured person. The first thing people did when somebody was injured was to take off running in search of a doctor—assuming there was a doctor within a couple miles.

Back in 1888, a man named Robert Wood Johnson was traveling on a Colorado train moving west. Robert was an outgoing person and, eager for someone to talk to on his travels, he struck up a conversation with another passenger on the train. This passenger happened to be the chief surgeon of the Railway.

In this conversation, Robert learned that the railroad workers were injured rather frequently and that medical help was often too far away to provide timely help. It wasn’t uncommon for bystanders to make attempts at moving the injured person and ending up accidentally doing more harm than good in the process, the doctor told him.

This conversation gave Robert the idea to market containers that held the contents for emergency medical treatment. In the same year, Mr. Robert Johnson—founder of Johnson & Johnson made the first First-Aid Kit. These boxes saved a lot of lives, allowing for workers to be treated and stabilized on the spot until further medical attention could be reached.

Be sure to travel wisely with your own First-Aid Kit from Everything Summer Camp and always be prepared! And, as always, thanks for reading!

- John