The Meadow-Brook Girls Under Canvas

The Meadow Brook Girls Under Canvas is the first book in the Meadow Brook Girls series by Janet Aldridge, published in 1913. The Meadow Brook Girls series ran across several years and followed four American schoolgirls through outdoor adventures in various American settings, with each book devoted to a particular season, location, and set of activities. This opening volume of the series introduces the four central characters and establishes the basic premise that would carry through the subsequent books.

The four girls are Harriet Burrell, Jane McCarthy, Margery Brown, and Hazel Holland, all in their middle teens and all friends from their school in the small town of Meadow Brook. They have organized themselves into a camping club and the first book follows their inaugural expedition into the country for a summer under canvas. The story involves the practical preparations for the camping trip, the selection of a campsite, the establishment of the camp, and the various adventures that the girls encounter during their time in the woods. There are encounters with various local people, mild physical dangers that the girls handle through their combination of practical skill and moral resolve, and small mystery elements that give the plot its narrative drive.

The book establishes the conventions that would characterize the series throughout its run. The four girls are clearly distinguished from each other by personality, with Harriet as the natural leader, Jane as the practical and energetic one, Margery as the more cautious and conventional one, and Hazel as the youngest and most enthusiastic. The combination of personalities allows the series to dramatize various positions on the questions that come up in the course of the adventures, with the girls reaching their decisions through discussion and through the practical demands of their situations.

The series belonged to the substantial body of early twentieth century American girls’ fiction that promoted outdoor recreation, physical activity, and practical competence as appropriate aspirations for young women. The Meadow Brook Girls books, like the better known Camp Fire Girls and Girl Scouts series of the same period, reflected and contributed to the broader movement of American girls and young women into outdoor activities that earlier generations had largely reserved for boys.

The book is short and reads quickly. For readers interested in early twentieth century American girls’ series fiction, this is the recommended starting point for the Meadow Brook Girls series. It pairs naturally with the other volumes in the series.