Crossposted from my Scouting Wide Games for the Tabletop blog
Tag: Girl Scouts of America
Khaki Lass – Be Prepared – early Girl Scout (Of America?) postcard
Up early, dodging the heat, working on another Girl Scout Of America patrol for my Scouting Wide Games for the Tabletop Project.
This charming Khaki Lass says “Be Prepared” – keep safe in the heat.
Postcard image painted by Philip Boileau, c. 1910s.
Crossposted from my Scouting Wide Games – read more about this card and painter here:
Blog posted by Mark Man Of TIN, 1970s British Boy Scout (Bronze Arrow, retired) on 17 July 2022.
Happy Fourth Of July to my tiny Americans
Happy Fourth of July to American readers of my blog.
Happy Fourth Of July to my tiny Americans below!
Patriotic colours of red, white and blue of the WW1 Minute Girls, seen here (above) in my Camp Fire Girls USA from the 1910s and 1920s. Conversions from STS Little Britons LBB30 Boy Scout in this 42mm range.
Early Girl Scouts (Of America) conversions from plastic soldier types.
Lincoln Logs wood cabin – Marx Scout and Britain’s Scout figures (repaired).
r ff 
Blog posted by Mark, Man Of TIN on the 4th Of July 2022.
110 years of the Girl Scouts Of America
Read more at: https://tabletopscoutingwidegames.wordpress.com/2022/03/12/110-years-of-the-girl-scouts-of-america/
Another DMZ demilitarised post:
https://tabletopscoutingwidegames.wordpress.com
Blog posted by Mark Man of TIN, 1970s Boy Scout (Bronze Arrow) retired, 12 March 2022
12 March 1912 – Juliette Daisy Gordon Low forms the Girl Scouts of America
Celebrate an amazing woman Juliette ‘Daisy’ Gordon Low (1860-1927) and the Girl Scouts of America that she founded on this day in Savannah, Georgia, 12th March 1912
Crossposted from our ongoing Tabletop Scouting Wide Games (and Snowball Fights) Project blog. This was set up by me (Mark Man of TIN) and Alan (Duchy of Tradgardland) Gruber before the Woking Little Wars Revisited Games Day 54mm last March 2020:
Crossposted by Mark Man of TIN, March 12th 2021.
Turning Pound Store Plastic soldiers into Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts
When no one makes cheap 54mm plastic scouts, what can you do but convert some of the cheapest rackety cloned and distorted toy soldiers into Boy and Girl Scouts? Some of this worked well. Read more at:
Crossposted from my Scouting Wide Games for the Tabletop blog site by Mark, Man of TIN (1970s Cub Scout, Bronze Arrow, Retired) 17 October 2019
More original Scouting Handbooks – Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts of America
More research for the Scouting Wide Games on the tabletop project: https://manoftinblog.wordpress.com/wide-games-scouting-games-page/
Two new Scouting handbook reprints have arrived, around the time I finished reading How Girls can Help to Build the Empire – The Handbook for Girl Guides (1912)
The Girl Guide 1912 Handbook was updated by Baden Powell in 1918 as Girl Guiding. The last BP update in 1931 before his death in 1941, taking into account women’s war work in WW1, can be found here with all the added later guide or ‘Brownie’ information added onto an edited down, shorter Girl Guide sections http://www.thedump.scoutscan.com/girlguiding.pdf
What differences if any would I need to make to incorporate Girl Scouts into the Wide Games?
What differences if any would it make if I set these Wide Games in America or outside Britain?
I spent part of the recent weekends and days, some too hot for hobby painting, in skim reading through two affordable new paperback reprints of early scouting books from America. These were The Boy Scouts of America Scout’s Handbook 1911 and the Girl Scouts of America How Girls Can Help Their Country – 1913 Handbook for Girl Scouts.
The Boys Scouts Of America Handbook (1911] is a chunky book, longer at 400 pages (plus adverts of scouting kit) than the British 1908 original (350 pages) and partly written by the first (and only) American Chief Scout Ernest Thompson Seton, naturalist and author. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ernest_Thompson_Seton
The Boy Scouts of America uniform is remarkably like the US Army one, as you can see from this Handbook Advert.
The Boy Scouts of America 1911 handbook is much thicker than the slim ‘British’ or original Baden Powell ‘Scouting for Boys’, first published in serial form then collected into a 1908 book, which also incorporates many of the notes for scoutmasters or Patrol leaders.
The American 1911 Boy Scout version is full of wildlife information, Wood Craft and Camp Craft, a whole extra 90+ pages of American wildlife, geology notes, fishing advice, fungi foraging, much of it by Ernest Thompson Seton. There is even a (Nature) Conservation badge in 1911! Seton’s debt to Baden Powell is acknowledged in the Wide Games section p.305 with a footnote: “The Games from lion Hunting to Hare and Hounds are from General Baden Powell.” These include both Siberian Man Hunt, Snow Fort and Smugglers Over The Border. I wonder what in turn Baden Powell’s debt to Seton was?
For the Boy Scout in America who could afford it, this must have been an informative handbook and reference.
There are ‘civics’ sections on a selective summary of American History, America’s past and recent Wars, Abraham Lincoln, the history of the flag, as well as (Seton’s) references to Native American culture. Slavery is briefly mentioned as a cause of the Civil War.
My copy of the Boy Scouts of America Handbook is an inexpensive modern paperback Dover reprint of the 1911 original https://store.doverpublications.com/0486439917.html
Warning! Just reading the list of Dover Americana reprints makes me want to overspend in their online shop.
You can find the 1911 original free online at: https://archive.org/stream/boyscoutshandboo29558gup/pg29558.txt
The Scout Master’s Handbook 1911 is here: https://archive.org/details/handbookforscou00amergoog/page/n3
Interesting fact: Every U.S. president since President Taft has been elected by the Executive Board as the honorary president of the Boy Scouts of America. Teddy Roosevelt wrote an endorsement in the 1911 Handbook. This honorary position is still the case in the age of Obama and Trump.
https://voiceofscouting.org/the-presidents-and-scouting
Black Scouts, White Scouts?
Fraternisation in Scouting activities between Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts was not officially encouraged, not in the 1910s of America or the British Empire.
The debate continues today on inclusion and Co-Ed, Girl only, Boy only troops today http://theconversation.com/what-history-tells-us-about-boy-scouts-and-inclusion-74805
I was also quite curious how the segregation issue affected early scouting in America. Native American culture is referenced, but not Hispanic or what we would now call Black or African American culture. Would this reflect what happened around the British Empire?
Could I have black scouts or African American Scouts alongside white scouts if setting the Wide Game in the early Twentieth Century America?
Protests over the inclusion of African American Boy Scouts arose early on in the Boy Scouts of America’s history.
When one of its founders W.D. Boyce departed [to set up the eventually clearly segregated Lone Scout movement], he: “turned the Boy Scout corporation over to the members of the Executive Board with the stipulation that the Boy Scouts would not discriminate on the basis of race or creed. The BSA established the position that African Americans should be included, but that local communities should follow the same policies that they followed in the school systems.”
“Thus, much of the American South as well as many major northern communities had segregated programs with “colored troops” until the late 1940s. Some troops in the South threatened to leave BSA and burn their uniforms if African American Scouts were permitted, but [James] West was key in overcoming those obstacles.” Reference: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Boy_Scouts_of_America
According to the African American Registry:
“In the South, with the “separate but equal” mindset of the times, black [scout] troops were not treated equally. They were often not allowed to wear scout uniforms, and had far smaller budgets and insufficient facilities to work with. The BSA on a national level was often defensive about its stance on segregation …
[Early integration] would have also been dangerous, because the Ku Klux Klan had strongly denounced the Scouts for even having segregated black troops. They claimed the BSA was a puppet of the Catholic Church, and it was not unheard of for Scout Jamborees and rallies to be broken up, often violently, by the Klan. After the Civil Rights Act, slowly, troops began to integrate throughout the nation, even in the South …”
Reference: https://aaregistry.org/story/the-african-american-boy-scout-movement-a-story/
“Stanley Harris made significant gains in introducing African American boys to scouting. He was made the head of the Interracial Services division of the Boy Scouts, and given the task of promoting interracial scouting across the nation. He supported the founding of the first all-black Boy Scout troop in 1916 and, during the 1920s, helped organize the first all-Native American troop. In 1926, he organized the Scouts’ Interracial Service”
Stanley Harris (d. 1976) was employed to boost Boy Scout inclusion https://www.ncdcr.gov/blog/2015/08/13/stanley-harris-booster-of-diverse-scouting-initiatives
The inclusion debate continue: http://theconversation.com/what-history-tells-us-about-boy-scouts-and-inclusion
Benjamin Jordan book links YouTube interview: https://www.uncpress.org/book/9781469627656/modern-manhood-and-the-boy-scouts-of-america/?title_id=3759
The Girl Scouts of America Version of the handbook
How Girls Can Help Their Country (1913) is the Girl Scouts Of America version of the Handbook Agnes And Robert Baden Powell (BP), so obviously replacing the Britain and Empire references and examples with ones from American history and culture, as Seton did in the Boy Scouts of America version. The Book was written by Walter Hoxie and Juliette “Crazy Daisy” Gordon Low, founder of the Girl Scouts Of America.
Walter John Hoxie (1848-1934) was a recognized authority on birds and formed a nature group for young girls, many of whom became members of the first Girl Scout troop when it was organized by Juliette Gordon Low.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juliette_Gordon_Low
Juliette Gordon Low (1860 – 1927) was the founder of Girl Scouts of the USA.
Inspired by the work of Lord Baden-Powell, founder of Boy Scouts, Juliette Low joined the Girl Guide movement in England, forming a group of Girl Guides in Great Britain in 1911 before returning to America.
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/the-very-first-troop-leader-116645976/
I was interested to read that Juliette had been in England, so saw and took part in early Baden Powell scouting there before returning to the USA in 1912.
There she established the first U.S. Girl Guide troop in Savannah, Georgia.
In 1915, the United States’ Girl Guides became known as the Girl Scouts, and Juliette Gordon Low was the first president. Her birthday, October 31, is commemorated by the Girl Scouts as “Founder’s Day“.
Reading these Edwardian / early Twentieth Century handbooks, it is interesting from a gamer’s point of view when writing rules or role cards for Boy and Girl Scout characters to see the similarities and differences between how Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts or Guides were expected to train and behave.
Different characters amongst boys were acknowledged in The Scoutmasters Handbook (America).
Juliette Gordon Low in her Preaface or Foreword mentions that the Boy Scouts book (America 1911? Baden Powell 1908?) should not be followed too closely.
After a brief uncoordinated early year or two when girls set up their own girl scout patrols after Scouting for Boys was published in serial form c. 1907/8, supported by Baden Powell, ‘fraternisation’ between the two sexes increasingly was seen as a problem for both sides.
In America, there were many competing organizations for girls that claimed to be the closest model to Boy Scouting. Juliette Gordon Low hoped support from prominent people would help legitimize her organisation, Girl Scouts Of America (GSA) as the official sister organization to the Boy Scouts. Two pages in my 1913 reprint book list the distinguished ladies who became the Honorary Committee of The Girl Scouts. Not being well versed in the minutiae of American history, I’m not sure who all these ‘great and good’ ladies are but recognise the name of Mrs Thomas Edison.
Rival Girls Organisations?
Juliette’ biggest competition was the Camp Fire Girls, which was formed in the USA in part by James E. West, the Chief Executive of the Boy Scouts of America. It was seen as a “strong proponent of strict gender roles.”
“In March 1912, Gordon Low wrote to the Camp Fire Girls, inviting them to merge into the Girl Guides, but they declined even after Baden-Powell suggested that they reconsider. James West considered many of the activities that the Girl Guides participated in to be gender–inappropriate, and [West] was concerned that the public would question the masculinity of the Boy Scouts if they participated in similar activities.” Source: Wikipedia article on Juliette Gordon Low
“Although the Girl Guides were growing, the Camp Fire Girls were growing at a faster rate, so Gordon Low traveled to England to seek counsel from the British Girl Guides. By the time she returned to America in 1913, she had a plan to spread Girl Guiding nationwide by changing the name from Girl Guides to Girl Scouts …”
“[Her] Savannah Girl Guides had already “renamed themselves to Girl Scouts because ‘Scout’ reminded them of America’s pioneer ancestry. James West objected to the name change, saying that it trivialized the name of scout and would cause older Boy Scouts to quit. Baden-Powell gave Gordon Low his support on her use of the term scout, although he preferred the term Guide for the British Girl Guides.” Reference: Juliette Gordon Low Wikipedia article.
Looking at her Part 1 introduction section, Juliette suggested that Girl Scouts should not need be “a new club” but “existing organisations such as school clubs, factories, social or charitable clubs, YWCAs can also take up in addition to their other work or play, the Girl Scouts training and games … Where girls do not already belong to any clubs, they can form themselves into groups and bands, and these are called Girl Scouts.”
Black Girl Scouts, White Girl Scouts?
https://www.girlscouts.org/en/about-girl-scouts/our-history.html
The GSA Timeline mentions: “Additionally one of the earliest Native American Girls Scout Troops formed on the Onondaga Reservation in New York State in 1921, and Mexican American girls formed a Girl Scout troop in Houston Texas in 1922.”
On the segregation issue the African American Registry website notes that although Daisy Low’s first group in Savanna Georgia [the Confederate South] in 1912 was all white :
“Racially segregated in the beginning, the first troop for African American girls was formed in 1917, and by the 1950s GSUSA began a national effort to desegregate all Girl Scout troops. In 1956, Martin Luther King Jr. described the Girl Scouts as “a force for desegregation.”
Reference: https://aaregistry.org/story/black-history-and-the-girl-scouts-iof-the-usa/
There is more here about different individual guiders’ efforts to create suitable scout colonies for African-American girls:
Reference: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/girl-scouting-was-once-segregated-180962208/
I take my 1970s Cub Scout hat off to these founders and those others who fought to make Scouting and guiding accessible to all, regardless of colour and background.
Certainly as I develop my Wide Games tabletop rules,there should be a Daisy Patrol flag for my Girl Scout figures, in honour of Juliette Gordon “Daisy” Low. Patrol colours are yellow and white.
The challenges of the future is how the Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts associations round the world join forces and also remain “separate but equal” https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2019-04-17/boy-scouts-are-just-scouts-now-and-that-s-making-girl-scouts-mad
Despite the great marketing opportunities to have official suppliers with the scout logo or name (a copyright carefully protected from the earliest days) the uniform requirements were basic and hopefully affordable to all:
It is easy nowadays to mock Boy Scouting and Girl Scouting or Guiding; how forward thinking they were is shown in the self defence section on shooting and the section on Women aviation pioneeers here in the Girl Scouts of America 1913 handbook, linked to the Aviation Badge :
They may have had their rivalries and flaws, but I think we and many families over the last hundred years have had many reasons to be thankful to people like Juliette ‘Crazy Daisy’ Gordon Low, Walter James Hoxie, the first original Savannah Georgia Girl Scouts, Agnes Baden-Powell and her brother Robert, Ernest Thompson Seton, Daniel Carter Beard, James West, even controversial characters like W.D. Boyce.
Not to mention the less well known Scout leaders who led the push for African American involvement and desegregation in Scouting, mentioned in the Smithsonian article. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/girl-scouting-was-once-segregated-180962208/
A. Josephine Groves Holloway 1898 – 1988
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Josephine_Groves_Holloway
B. Maggie Lena Walker https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maggie_L._Walker. Smithsonian article: “The first African-American troop founded south of the Mason-Dixon Line didn’t occur until 1932. This is according to the National Park Service. Maggie L. Walker was a bank president and newspaper editor. She fought to form Girl Scout Bird Troop, Number 34”
C. Sarah Randolph Bailey of “The Girl Reserves” (1885-1972)
https://www.georgiawomen.org/sarah-randolph-bailey
“Perhaps her greatest passion was the Girl Scouts and providing African-American girls the same experience and benefits despite the fact that the Girls Scouts did not allow black troops until the 1940s. Bailey organized groups called the YWCA Girl Reserves in 1935, a movement of the YWCA that offered young black girls the same experience as the Girl Scouts. Within two years, Macon [Georgia] had 15 Girl Reserve groups. Her work did not go unnoticed and in 1945, the Girl Scouts of the USA invited the formation of black troops.”
I might need to add some new more inclusive or diverse Boy Scout and Girl Scout Patrols or Troops!
Blog posted by Mark Man of TIN (1970s Cub Scout, Bronze Arrow, retired, 10 August 2019.
Wide Games and the early Girl Scouts?
Girl Scouts?
I am slowly trying to work out how to reproduce Boy Scout and Girl Scout Wide Games with miniature figures on the gaming table or in the garden.
Boy Scouts? Girl Scouts? Girl Guides? What’s in a name?
In Britain since 1910, we have not had mainstream Girl Scouts, after Guiding was set up to manage the enthusiastic adoption of Scouting for Boys by many Edwardian girls, sometimes originally in mixed troops.
However in some parts of the UK, across America and the world, Girl Scouts have survived in both name and spirit.
The Girl Scouts of America kept their distinctive Scout name since their formation in 1912, led by Juliette Gordon Low. In this Very good history guide to the early Girl Scouts of Britain before they became Girl Guides, it mentions Cuckoo Patrol Girl Scout troops, the fears about mixed groups, suffragette activities and WW1 and the fact when Guides was set up in Britain not all Girl Scouts apparently transferred …
https://lesliesguidinghistory.webs.com/guides.htm
Following the publication of Scouting for Boys in January 1908 girls were actively engaging in Scouting, they had been just as inspired by the ideas in the book as their male counterparts. Troops and patrols of Girl Scouts were encouraged by Robert Baden-Powell;
“I think girls can get just as much healthy fun and as much value out of scouting as boys can. Some who have taken it up have proved themselves good souls in a very short time. As to pluck, women and girls can be just as brave as men and have over and over again proved it in times of danger. But for some reason it is not expected of them and consequentially it is seldom made part of their education, although it ought to be; for courage is not always born in people, but can generally be made by instruction.”
Robert Baden-Powell, The Scout, May 1908
One group of Girl Scouts, sadly only known to us as “Kangaroo Patrol” were so inspired by this quote that they copied it out at the beginning of their patrol magazine in May 1909. Their magazine was full of adventure stories with Scouts preventing robberies and kidnappings, it also showed girls and boys Scouting together.
Text source: https://heritage.scouts.org.uk/explore/early-days-of-scouting-1907-1920/scoutingforgirls/
Sounds like a good mixed patrol name – Kangaroos!
The British Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts movement (1909), sometimes known as Peace Scouts, ran in parallel for a time, absorbing Girl Scouts who did not want to transfer into Guiding in 1910.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Boy_Scouts_and_British_Girl_Scouts_Association
Wonderfully the BBS and BGS troops still exist in small numbers in Britain and elsewhere proudly wearing the old fashioned uniform, open to boys and girls and linked to the worldwide scouting movement.
https://www.bbsandbgs.org.uk/differences.php
Baden Powell was surprised but not antagonistic towards the enthusiatic uptake of Scouting for Boys by the kind of vigorous “intelligent sort of girl who likes boys’ games and books” as H.G. Wells observed in his preface to Little Wars a few years later in 1913.
“As records show, at this time Baden-Powell was clearly supportive of Girl Scouts. In May 1908 he wrote to one Girl who enquired that she would be welcome to set up a Patrol of Girl Scouts, and in his regular column in ‘The Scout’ in January 1909 he stated of the girls that “some of them are really capable Scouts” …”
“ …In the 1909 edition of Scouting for Boys the uniform suggestions included recommending blue skirts for Girl Scouts. Large Scout Rallies were held, including one at Scotstoun near Glasgow, where Girl Scouts were both specifically invited, and warmly welcomed.” Source: Leslie’s guiding history website.
Useful painting or colour scheme tip : blue skirts rather than the Boy Scout blue shorts mentioned in the 1909 Scouting for Boys. Dark Blue went on to become the colour of early Guide uniforms.
“So clearly, throughout 1908 and much of 1909, Girl Scouts were welcomed, both unofficially and officially” including the Crystal Place rally in 1909 where early Girl Scouts were photographed amongst the boys. It is reported that more than 1000 Girl Scouts were present.
“By late 1909 amongst the official Scout membership of 55,000 there were already over 6000 Girl Scouts officially registered, and more registering daily.” Leslie’s Guiding History.
By 1910, Guiding had been established to protect the reputation of these Edwardian girls and of the fledgeling Scout Movement. Scouting for Boys was adapted by Baden Powell and his sister Agnes into a Guiding Manual, “How Girls Can Help Build The Empire”, designed to equip girls with camping skills, homecraft and child care skills for adult life in Britain or upcountry in the Empire.
It would be almost 70 years before mixed older (Venture) Scout groups were established again in Britain.
Leslie’s Guiding Ideas Website also has some contemporary Guiding / Girl Scouts Wide Games Scenarios, worth coming back to:
https://lesliesguideideas.webs.com/gamesandwidegames.htm
Guiding and scouting being world movements, it is of course possible that fictional Imagi-Nations like the Bronte family’s Gondal and Gaaldine, or the many great Tintin-esque Imagi-Nations and Grand Duchys created by gamers could have their own Boy Scout and Girl Scout movements.
Girl Scouts of Gaaldine or Gondal?
Boy Scouts of Angria or Generica, anyone?
Blogposted by Mark Man of TIN (1970s Cub Scout, Bronze Arrow, Retired) 17 May 2019
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