Naked in the Woods: Joseph Knowles & the Legacy of Frontier Fakery

Motavalli has created a wonderful interpretive picture of the media and public reactions to a great story in early 20th Century America. He puts the reader in the period, but brings us in contact with our ancestors and shows that we haven't progressed in terms of our love for the spectacular stunt! Joseph Knowles exploits thrilled the nation longing for a free show. Not unlike the infamous OJ low speed chase that captivated us a while back. A good story, a wonderful interpretation and a great read!Naked in the Woods: Joseph Knowles and the Legacy of Frontier Fakery

Never have I read a more fascinating account of salesmenship in America. As a nation the US prides itself on our frontier heritage,the quest for individuality & independence, & the pursuit of an ideal existence in harmony with nature, & making a few bucks along the way. This is a true American story ! This book Kept Me In Stitches !!!

We are often told that our nation, especially our menfolk, are getting soft, that we don't have the ruggedness of our forebears, that we spend too much time in our cities and not enough back to the land, and that as a result we are losing some moral anchor which used to hold us in good stead. The trouble is that we have been told this for at least a hundred years, probably further back than that, and the message has not changed much, although it is a message that is enthusiastically boosted by many. Our coddled and citified society went faddishly berserk in 1913 for a man who simply went into the woods of Maine, vowing to stay there for two months on his own, unassisted by any technology. Joseph Knowles was a sensation at the time, now forgotten. His astonishing story is the subject of _Naked in the Woods: Joseph Knowles and the Legacy of Frontier Fakery_ (Da Capo Press) by Jim Motavalli. The author, a journalist who writes on environmental themes, has picked from obscurity a wonderful subject, not just Knowles but also the anxiety we tend to have that we are out of touch with natural life. Knowles was all of 43 years old when he went into the woods. He had been a sailor, trapper, and scout, but what he wanted to be was an artist. He had some untutored skill in painting, and was making sketches and paintings in Boston for a decade when he got the idea (perhaps in a dream) to go support himself in the woods. The _Boston Post_, always ready for a circulation gimmick, was ready to back him. "Can Knowles Live Two Months as a Cave Man?" came the headlines, and though the paper hyped the event, people were sincerely interested in the man-against-the-wilderness theme. Knowles was photographed and interviewed, and given a physical exam before trotting off to the woods in nothing but a g-string. When he emerged from the woods two months later, he had lost weight, but he was no longer naked, wearing birch sandals and the skin of a bear he had trapped and killed. He had caught the national spirit; he was viewed as a hero, awing crowds wherever he went. The bitter rival of the _Post_, the Hearst-owned _Boston Sunday American_, got onto the Knowles bandwagon by debunking it. Knowles, according to the revision, had spent two months in a log cabin with food (and even female companionship) delivered to him. Knowles had a couple of other wilderness trips, and then went on the lecture circuit and wrote a back-to-nature book about his experiences as the "Nature Man". The last third of _Naked in the Woods_ has mostly to do with his painting career; he did commissioned murals and small-scale calendar art. Knowles died in 1942. His artwork is still collected by some, and the Ilwaco Heritage Museum had a retrospective last year. We still have the Nature Man with us, in the form of "Survivor"-type television shows. Going wilderness is the show for Bear Grylls, who has starred in the British program _Man vs. Wild_, and who last year underwent a Know