The History of Buck’s Rock Camp
This amazing documentary by our former Head of Video, Jeff Oliver, details the history of Buck’s Rock for all to enjoy. Dive deep into our culture and history, and hear from some of the people who made Buck’s Rock what it is today!
Buck's Rock was founded by Dr. Ernst Bulova and his wife Ilse, Austrian educators and refugees from Nazi Germany. Ilse studied under famed educator Maria Montessori, and Ernst and Ilse went on to adapt her educational philosophy to their own vision. After fleeing Germany, Ernst and Ilse taught in England, before gaining passage through Ernst’s family in the United States to safely come teach here.
In 1941, the Children’s Foundation, a non-profit based in New York City, established a school in the Merryall region of New Milford, Connecticut. Affiliated with the Dalton School in New York City, Buck’s Rock School (named after the road it sat on, developer John Buck’s ‘Rock’ Road), was meant to establish a place for students to escape to and continue their studies in the event that NYC was ever under siege by Axis Power firebombing, just as London was during World War II. As progressive educators, Ernst and Ilse were brought in by the Children’s Foundation after arriving in the United States to work with visionary school director Helen Parkhurst.
In 1942, financial irregularities with the school’s administration resulted in a change of leadership, and Ernst and Ilse were given control of the project as the school was closed indefinitely. With a unique opportunity to reshape the institution with funding from the Children’s Foundation, Ernst and Ilse packed a mattress in the back of their car in the summer of 1942 and headed north to research camp life all throughout New England. That led directly to the establishment of Buck’s Rock Work Camp in 1943, which would provide adolescents the opportunity to serve their community through farming and machine repair in an environment where the campers were allowed to create their own schedule and exercise their independence.
As a work camp, Buck’s Rock needed “shops,” or places to work to support their function. They had to maintain their equipment, so they built a machine shop. They had to advertise within the community, so they built a silkscreen shop. They wanted to become a larger part of the greater New Milford community, so they formed a chorus to perform on the New Milford town green. Buck’s Rock Work camp was a wild success.
After that first summer, the Children’s Foundation gave the Bulovas independent control of the entire project.
Buck’s Rock Work Camp flourished. New shops were built every year by a camper-led work crew called the “Capable Construction Crew,” or CCC. In their free time, those first Buck’s Rockers established the tradition of performing and visual arts that would later become the foundation of our present camper experience.
In its early years, Buck's Rock emphasized farming, crafts, music, and drama. Gradually, fine arts and additional crafts were introduced, with studios and workshops built to house them. The performing arts - music, drama, dance, clowning, and improvisation - flourished, as did programs in science and technology, sports, and creative and journalistic writing for the camp's many publications.
From the beginning, Buck's Rock has recognized both creativity and work as educational values and as a way of life. Young people here discover that one cannot create by being inactive. Creation requires work: by painting a picture, writing a poem, performing on stage or in an orchestra, or playing softball. With dedication and enthusiasm, campers plunge into whatever endeavor they choose, and learn through the process of creating something new.
Buck’s Rock Performing and Creative Arts Camp, as it exists today, is still grounded on Ernst and Ilse’s original founding dream of freedom of choice, independence, and opportunities for free thinking and learning through process over product. As we enter our 80th year, that dream is as fervent and exciting as ever.
In 2021 and beyond, our mission as a not-for-profit organization is to make Buck’s Rock Camp increasingly more affordable and accessible to a wide and more diverse group of campers. Please consider donating today to help make this dream a reality!
