The Toronto Star Fresh Air Fund

Transcendental Rescue In a Modern City, 1900-1915

Bibliographic Data

ID4973389
AuthorsPhillip Gordon Mackintosh (0000-0002-7039-7467), Richard Anderson (0000-0002-7283-7219)
Year2009
Volume99
Issue4
Pages539-562
Publication date2009-10-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueGeographical Review (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0016-7428 • E-ISSN: 1931-0846
PublisherInforma UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1111/j.1931-0846.2009.tb00446.x
OpenAlexW1991659764
LanguageEN
Citations received2
References cited51

The Toronto Star newspaper began rescuing poor children from the city's hottest, smokiest, and smelliest neighborhoods in 1901. The Fresh Air Fund, like park and playground planning, assumed that proximity to nature modified both health and behavior. Evoking transcendentalism—the idea that providential nature could move humanity into higher forms of existence—the Star sent children to the countryside near Toronto, albeit temporarily, assured of producing tangible health benefits. It also expected "nature" to convert the antibourgeois immorality of poor children into something more tolerable

Fresh air · Humanity · Immorality · Media studies · Morality · Newspaper · Political science · Sociology · Star (game theory · Transcendental number · American Literature and Culture · Canadian Identity and History · Engineering · Historical Studies on Reproduction, Gender, Health, and Societal Changes · History · Law · Philosophy