For the last couple of years, I’ve helped run a camping trip with the girl scout troops my older kids are in. One camp gave us a copy of a 1956 Girl Scout handbook. It’s partly an orientation to what scouting is about, partly a list of badge requirements, and partly practical information.
Given that it was from an era where gender was especially polarized, I was surprised that the authorship of this book felt sensible and balanced to me. No mid-century book for girls would be complete without advice about posture and homemaking, but it’s light on “WIFE AND MOTHER!” content compared to most books of the era.
Compared to modern materials, there’s a lot of emphasis on being a good citizen, cheerfulness, and getting along with others. It’s not about expressing your individuality.
Some of the values are familiar, but framed differently. Environmentalism is presented as a form of patriotism.
The book favors diversity and internationalism. There were racially integrated troops from the beginning but it doesn’t seem to have been common. The original boy scout and girl scout laws were explicitly anti-classist: “A Girl Scout is a friend to all, and a sister to every other Girl Scout no matter to what social class she may belong.”
While the book encourages girls to learn all kinds of skills, it doesn’t pretend that adult women are likely to already know them. Carpentry projects suggest “Ask your father or brothers to help.”
The first aid section has nothing about choking or CPR; the Heimlich maneuver and CPR hadn’t been invented yet.
The book gives a light overview of all kinds of technical material, from “how an airplane flies” to “breeds of dairy cow.” You couldn’t do anything much with the few paragraphs about each topic, but it orients you to various areas you might learn more about. (Wing Scouts was a branch that encouraged senior girl scouts to get their pilot’s license.)
What is scouting for today?
Scouting began out of concern that boys in the early 20th century were growing up weak, aimless, and without practical skills that would fit them for military service. Girl scouts / guides took off soon after. Where the boys’ movement was trying to restore a vision of the past’s tough, capable, outdoorsy boyhood, for girls it was unprecedented to build campfires or navigate in the woods.
Girls have a lot of freedoms they didn’t have in 1916 or 1956. But children have less outdoor time and less freedom than in past generations, scouting seems promising to me as an activity that’s good for kids.
I’ve warmed up to the possibility that selling cookies is actually useful, despite most sales being done by the mothers. My oldest kid actually approaches strangers and asks them to buy cookies, and willingness to approach strangers is a great life skill. But many of the kids manage to get through cookie season essentially without approaching anyone. When I set my 10-year-old up with a table and a supply of cookies to sell, she protested: “Usually I sit in a chair and don’t say anything.” She soon realized this sales method would keep her at the booth a very long time. So she copied her older sister’s method of actually talking to strangers, and sold her cookies in about an hour.
In theory camping trips provide a chance for the kids to plan (what groceries do we need for 20 people? what if it rains? did we bring a can opener?) and take responsibility for running the campsite (by doing prep, cooking, and cleanup). At least in the troops I help with, currently none of us have the energy to try to work out when to schedule another meeting between the kids’ soccer, chorus, and dance practices in order to facilitate the group authorship of a grocery list by 17 of our kids. My impression is that some BSA troops go camping much more regularly, which is probably more conducive to developing real responsibility.
The buddy system for camps and hiking is great: once they reach 4th grade, pairs of kids can explore together. The basic purpose is to be sure nobody drowns or gets totally lost in the woods, and it gives them freedom that American children rarely get now.
How important is the “girl” part?
- Girl Scouts of the USA are still gendered, but BSA (formerly Boy Scouts of America) and many other nations’ programs have gone gender-neutral. Girl scouting in the US is now open to anyone but cis males.
- Historically, a lot of spaces were single-gender. I think it’s a bit of a shame that nearly all of them are gone, and I’d prefer to keep some girl-focused spaces as an option. (BSA does have all-girl and all-boy troops as well as mixed-gender “family troops”.)
- Of the 7 kids in one of my kids’ troops, 3 currently or formerly identify as non-binary.
- The organization treats gender as flexible for the children: my local council has a guide to inclusion of “non-binary youth and transgender boys in addition to all girls.” But the safety rules about adult volunteers were written with a more traditional view: “Always support and maintain a single-sex atmosphere for sleeping quarters. Men may participate only when separate sleeping quarters and bathrooms are available for their use.” I’m not sure if it’s actually come up, but my read of the policy is that a 17-year-old scout might be identified by the policy as a girl or nonbinary scout, and as a man if they become an adult volunteer at 18. I don’t envy troops / councils that have to work out how to handle that one.
- BSA is more outdoors-focused, and if the troops in my neighborhood happened to be BSA, I would happily have gone with that option.
What is camping for?
In Jeff’s family, camping was a cheap way to vacation with extended family without renting a house big enough for 20 people. In college, it was a way for me to spend a weekend with my boyfriend without offending anyone’s parents.
So it felt a little odd to pay money to go camping with a bunch of kids. Cooking over a campfire is slow and inconvenient, and we were doing it right next to a lodge with a propane stove. It wasn’t even environmentally friendly; we were putting smoke into the air.
But it was fun. And it was a forcing function to get us all to the woods for 24 hours, with a “no electronics” rule at least for the kids. It let the kids do stuff without their parents or teachers. I heard one pair of girls commiserating about how their dads brushed their teeth for them until age 11, so it seems like they could use some more independence.
The evening campfire is also one of the few remaining spaces where people make live music for fun. The scout musical tradition is also surprisingly long: one song at the recent campout was “Mrs. O’Leary” joking about the Chicago fire of 1871, to the tune of “Hot Time in the Old Town Tonight” from the 1890s. My kids were elated about their troop performances: “God Bless My Underwear” and a skit about a duck.
Takeaways
I have a lot of affection for the 1956 book, with its emphasis on values and practical skills for girls. (I’m not sure I would have enjoyed actual mid-century scouting’s emphasis on conformity: my mom quit because her troop fined you if you didn’t wear your uniform to meetings.)
And I’m keen on modern-day scouting getting kids out in the world doing things. Maybe next year I’ll even get them to do the dishes at the encampment.
