From many Girl Scout groups to one...

1910 illustration of American Girl Scouts by Adelia Beard.

Greetings Girl Scouts from Washington!

I'm visiting family in the lovely state of Washington on the northwest coast of the United States this week.

Washington state has a long history in Girl Scouting, too. As early as 1910, (yes, two years before Juliette Low returned to start her Savannah Girl Scouts!) there were Scouting groups for girls appearing all over the United States. Two of the earliest Scout groups for girls were formed by Presbyterian minister David Perry in Yakima and Spokane, Washington after he returned from a visit to England where he met the Girl Guides who impressed him greatly with their community service.

In another part of Washington, Aileen Miller organized girls into Scout groups without even realizing Reverend Perry was doing the same on the other side of the Cascade Mountains! Mrs Miller started her group of Girl Scouts after seeing the local Boy Scouts performing services to her community.

In fact, there were independent groups of Girl Guides and Girl Scouts forming all over the USA during the years of 1910-1912. Here are a few others we know about:

•        Miss Lena Beard, New York, along with her sister, Adelia, did a series of lectures in 1910 about her Girl Scouts of America.
•        Reverend E. C. Fintel, Des Moines, Iowa, organized the Ashbury Girl Scouts in 1910 after seeing the Girl Guides on his trip to England.
•        Clara Lisetor-Lane, also Des Moines, Iowa, inspired by Dr Perry Powell's Boy Scouts, started a group called Girl Scouts of America.

Did you know? The Beards were a family famous for work with young people in the early 20th Century. Lina and her sister Adelia Belle Beard wrote many good books for pioneering girls. Their brother, Dan Beard, played a key role in forming the Boy Scouts of America. The Beard sisters books have recently been republished in the years 2006-2009 (see American Girls Handy Book: How to Amuse Yourself and Others and On the Trail: An Outdoor Book for Girls) Both books are available as free ebooks  from Project Gutenberg. Check out On the Trail: An Outdoor Book for Girls.

So, from the very beginning, everyone thought it would be great to have Girl Scouts and so many groups started independently and locally. You may ask, how did Juliette Low's Girl Scouts that started two years later become the main organization? It is a good and important question. I'll see if I can answer that for you later today.