Gendering the Nation Online Museum Exhibit
Created by the class of HIST 465 (Topics in Women's History) 2015-16
Queens University, Canada
The All-American Boy: Citizenship and the Boy Scouts of America
The Boy Scouts of America (BSA) is one of America’s largest, and perhaps most well-known, youth organizations, composed of almost two and half million youth. Although the BSA is now seen as a national institution, Boy Scouting was not an American invention. The organization’s structure and goals were largely based off the British Scouting movement, founded by Lord Robert Baden-Powell in 1907. Following the success of Baden-Powell’s program, the BSA was created in 1910 and quickly gained popularity. This organization would grow to represent American nationalism and ideals.
One of the primary objectives of the BSA was to train young boys to become good citizens. The movement promoted the idea that ‘real boys’ contributed to the greater good. This exhibit is divided into three sections: First, “A Crisis in Masculinity & Character Building” will examine why the BSA was formed in early twentieth century America. The next section is “Boy Scout Programming,” which features different activities and aspects of the BSA program that promoted the idea of a scout as a good citizen. The last section, “Boy Scouts and War,” explores the role Boy Scouts played during the First and Second World Wars. Each of these areas contain various artifacts and photographs from the early twentieth century which document how the Boy Scouts intertwined citizenship, the nation, and boyhood.
The Scout Oath, seen here, was taken from the first edition of the Boy Scout Handbook in 1911. It is perhaps the most important and famous part of the scouting program and outlines the organization’s intentions and values. This was one of many symbols and rituals that made up Scouting, along with the Scout Law, motto, sign, salute, ranks, and badges. Interestingly, the Oath places God and country before the scout and others, showing the importance the BSA placed on the welfare of the nation. It was this underlying ideal of putting the greater good first that would show up time and time again in scout programming and teachings. To the BSA’s officials, helping one’s country was of great importance and something that every boy should strive for.
Boy Scouts of America, Inc. Boy Scout’s Handbook: The First Edition. Garden City: Doubleday, Page & Company, 1911.
A Crisis of Masculinity and Character Building
“No one can be a good American unless he is a good citizen, and every boy ought to train himself so that as a man he will be able to do his full duty to the community. I want to see the boy scouts not merely utter fine sentiments, but act on them; not merely sing, “My Country ‘Tis of Thee,’ but act in a way that will give them a country to be proud of.”
-Colonel Theodore Roosevelt, Honorary Vice-President, Boy Scouts of America
In order to understand the motivation and reasoning behind the Boy Scouts program, it is important to understand the context in which it was created. America, at the turn of the twentieth century, was undergoing a so-called ‘crisis of masculinity.’ There was a fear that America’s boys were becoming too effeminate or weak. The closing of the frontier, urbanization, industrialization, too much leisure time, and perhaps most importantly, the fear of feminization all contributed to this crisis. There was a view that there were “no bad boys, only bad surroundings,” indicating that people believed one’s character was influenced by their environment. Given the right setting, proper character-building could take place to combat this feminization and restore masculinity to American youth. The Boy Scout movement stepped into the gap left by home, school, and church and provided an outlet for masculinity.
Character-building was seen as a solution to this crisis, and social institutions provided an opportunity to shape the nation’s young boys into good men. Boy Scout officials saw the early teenage years as the most troubling time for boys. They chose to begin Boy Scout training at age twelve to allow sufficient time to mold the young boys. The BSA’s ideal boy was outlined through the ‘Twelve Points of the Scout Law,’ which stated that a scout was: trustworthy, loyal, helpful, friendly, courteous, kind, obedient, cheerful, thrifty, brave, clean, and reverent. Through their various activities, the BSA would enforce these ideals upon their scouts. Although not explicitly mentioned in the Scout Law, citizenship was an important aspect of the model scout.
Chief Scout Citizen
To the BSA, Theodore Roosevelt was the ideal man, he was a war-hero and former president, and embodied civic responsibility and morality. Roosevelt acted as the first, and only, ‘Chief Scout Citizen,’ as well as the Honorary Vice-President of the BSA, a position that all American presidents since have held. The above is an excerpt from a letter written by Roosevelt for the 1911 Boy Scout’s Handbook, which was included in the chapter on practical citizenship. This letter was written only a year after the founding of the Boy Scouts of America, a sign of the spreading popularity of the movement. Roosevelt’s message is clear: active citizenship was the ultimate sign of a true American. The only way for a boy to be a good citizen was to take part in activities in the community, and the BSA was just the organization to provide this opportunity. Roosevelt’s words were a prime example of how the ideal boyhood was connected to the nation.
Boy Scouts of America, Inc. Boy Scout’s Handbook: The First Edition. Garden City: Doubleday, Page & Company, 1911.
Building the Community
The above is an excerpt from a 1921 article by Lorne Barclay for the Journal of Education, which shows a contemporary view of the organization. This piece is important in understanding how the community viewed the Boy Scouts movement, and also because it evaluates the success of the program. Here, Barclay claimed that Boy Scouting had become integral to building a community and shaping America’s boys into model citizens. It highlighted the importance of patriotism and citizenship, elements which were pivotal to the Boy Scout movement. These goals were achieved through citizenship training and opportunities for practical application of these skills, such as helping the community. The article also stated “Scouting trains boys to serve the community but, equally as important, it trains the community to serve its boyhood.” This once again shows the great importance that early twentieth American society placed on boyhood and masculinity. To Barclay, and the BSA, masculinity was intertwined with helping others, a reciprocal relationship between boy and country.
Barclay, L. “The Boy Scout Program and Building the Community.” The Journal of Education, 93.5 (1921), p. 119–121.
Boy Scout Programming
The activities of the BSA are too numerous and diverse to all be mentioned here. Some of these activities were focused on developing specific skills, such as how to start a campfire or treat snake bites. However, many of these activities were geared towards training the boys to become good citizens by thinking of the greater good. A ‘good turn’ was seen as a modern form of chivalry, and therefore the standard of masculinity that boys should aspire to in the day. The Scout’s handbook stated that scouts were obliged to do a daily ‘good turn’ for someone. Examples of a ‘good turn’ included helping an old lady cross the street or clearing litter. BSA officials designed ‘good turns’ to fill a need for service within society, believing that it was the duty of the Boy Scouts to provide useful service to their community. While scouts were not supposed to boast or take rewards for their good turns, the system had a secondary motivation: to increase the public image of the organization.
Another activity that provided boys with a chance to prove their duty to the nation was the planting of Memorial Scout Trees. This program fit in with the organization’s ideals on many levels. First, it aligned with the movement’s emphasis towards conservation, as it was seen as the moral obligation of citizens to help conserve the nation’s natural resources. It was also a way to connect with the country’s heritage, as it was believed that nature was symbolic of America’s forefathers, and by planting trees the boys would be able to foster patriotism while helping the community. Lastly, it connected the boys with America’s heroes, for example, through the planting of a ‘Roosevelt Memorial Tree’ after the former president’s death in 1919. Memorial Tree Planting was much more than an activity to partake in, but a way to express one’s commitment to fostering the nation.
Merit Badges
Merit Badges were awarded to Boy Scouts who fulfilled criteria pertaining to a variety of skills, ranging from cooking to astronomy to first aid. By 1911, there were already fifty-seven different badges a scout could earn. Badges were a way to reward character building and to showcase the values of the BSA. The rank of Eagle Scout, who was seen as the “all-around perfect scout”, was achieved when a boy was able to collect twenty-one badges.The ‘Civics’ badge seen to the left was granted to scouts who could prove knowledge regarding municipal, state, and federal politics. The inclusion of this badge into the Boy Scout programming shows that the organization saw engagement in politics and civics as an important attribute. As scouting was seen as a way to shape the nation’s future leaders, the inclusion of civics was necessary to ensure the preservation of American ideals and democracy.
Boy Scouts of America, Inc. Boy Scout’s Handbook: The First Edition. Garden City: Doubleday, Page & Company, 1911.
Boy Scout Camps
One of the most well-known features of scouting is campcraft, a term referring to the various outdoors skills taught by the BSA. Attending Boy Scout camps became a big attraction of the program. Away from home, the camps provided an opportunity for the BSA to have complete control over the boys, allowing them to instill the values they wished to see. This image was taken in 1918 at Lett’s Camp in California and shows the morning drills. The drills were a sign of the organization and efficiency that the BSA employed, and the boys’ attentiveness is an indication of the response from the scouts. These drills taught obedience, and respect for one’s scoutmaster would translate into respect for the country’s authorities. The outdoors, a big pull for these camps, was also a sign of ‘manliness.’ The majority of the merit badges required to be an Eagle Scout dealt with the outdoors, indicating that a real Scout was able to conquer the outdoors.
“Boy’s Activities- Drills- Boy Scout Activities. The main ‘street’ of Boy Scouts of America ‘Lett’s’ Week and Camp, located near Hollywood California.” American Unofficial Collection of World War I Photographs, 1917-1918. Records of the War Department General and Special Staffs, 1860-1952
Boy’s Life Magazine
This is a copy of the first edition of Boy’s Life, the BSA’s scouting magazine started in 1911 and still in print today. Boy’s Life included various fictional stories, scouting news, tips & hints for scouts, and other articles. These publications were another way to reinforce the message that the BSA wanted to send. This issue printed various maxims for scouts to follow. One of these was: “If every boy works hard at scouting and really learns all that it teaches him, he will, at the end of it, have some claim to call himself a real man, and will find, if ever he goes on service or to a colony, that he will have no difficulty in looking after himself and in being really useful to his country.” It is clear that the BSA saw their training as essential to forming a good citizen, and that their idea of ‘real’ masculinity was a boy who helped others and the nation. It was hoped that the boys reading these magazines would want to embody the organization’s ideal citizen.
Boy Scouts of America, Inc., Boy’s Life, March 1911.
Boy Scout Books
Among the various Boy Scout related merchandise that emerged during this time was a series of Boy Scout Books. These were cheap, full-length novels with stories of heroic Boy Scouts embarking on extravagant adventures. They appealed to the aura of romance and adventure of the time and many of these novels involved someone trying to undermine America, with the Boy Scouts saving the day. As far-fetched as these novels were, they were extremely popular. By 1914 there were over one hundred novels being read by thousands of boys across America. The patriotic tones of these novels served to enhance a sense of Americanism, and related back to the Scout Oath’s ideology of doing one’s duty to their nation. The book seen here, For Uncle Sam, Boss, Or, Boy Scouts at Panama, was published in 1913 and part of the ‘Boy Scout Series.’ In the decades to follow, the Boy Scouts would inspire several different book series including the Pee-Wee Harris and Tom Slade series.
Fitzhugh, P.K. For Uncle Sam, Boss, or Boy Scouts at Panama. New York: Thomas Y. Crowell Company, 1913.
The Boy Scouts and War
To outsiders the Boy Scouts may appear to resemble a military group, such as cadets, but it was in fact a civilian organization. While neither promoting nor discouraging the military, the BSA saw themselves as a character-building institution rather than military training. This did not mean, however, that the skills developed in the program could not be useful for future soldiers. In fact, in his 1911 letter seen earlier, Theodore Roosevelt himself recognized that although the BSA was not established to create soldiers, those involved could “make better soldiers for having been scouts.” Certainly many of the skills taught in the programming, such as first aid, camping skills, and knot-tying, would have been useful on the front. If the BSA was not a military organization, then what role did they play during wartime? One major activity they were involved in was conservation efforts. Scouts collected items such as rubber, newspapers, and scrap metal that were vital during wartime and promoted the idea of conservation to the wider public.
The Boy Scouts involvement in the home-front war effort embodied the masculinity the organization sought to cultivate. Wartime activities have long been associated with masculinity, and although not directly involved in the conflict, the scouts’ efforts allowed them to show that they were both real men as well as real Americans. A true man would help defend his nation, just as the Boy Scouts were doing. This was especially important during times of war when there was a heightened sense of Americanism.
Weapons of Liberty
One of the biggest ways that the Boy Scouts contributed to the war effort was through their War Bond Drives. These drives, which typically spanned a week, saw scouts putting up posters around their communities and selling bonds themselves. The Boy Scouts were a natural choice for this task: there were thousands of scouts in cities and towns across America, and the good reputation of the organization meant that they were welcomed in communities. This favourable public attention was something that the BSA strove for through their various group activities; the good public opinion served as promotion for the organization. The poster shown here was from 1918 and promoted the Boy Scout’s Third Liberty Loan campaign. The artist’s use of various American and BSA symbols served to directly connect the work the Boy Scout’s did with the idea of defending the nation. For example, the Boy Scout motto “Be Prepared” inscribed on the sword associates the BSA’s efforts with defending the nation. The mobilization of the Boy Scout workforce was a sign of just how important civilians could be to the war effort.
Leyendecker, Joseph Christian. Weapons for Liberty, 1917. Poster (76 x 51 cm).
We, Too, Have a Job to Do
Norman Rockwell was an iconic twentieth-century American artist who created illustrations for the BSA for over thirty years. This image, We, Too, Have a Job to Do, was printed in 1944 in the annual Boy Scouts of America Calendar and Rockwell depicted an ideal Boy Scout, in this case one who was committed to helping his nation. The figure in the image is making the three-fingered Scout Sign, used when reciting the Scout Oath. In this illustration, Rockwell sends a message that it was not just the soldiers who could serve the nation during wartime, but those on the home-front as well. In one image, Rockwell managed to combine support for the Boy Scout movement, the war effort, and America. Although the illustration sends a message of duty, it does not depict exactly what the Boy Scouts did during the war, leaving the viewer to decide how to contribute. In any case, the scout at attention depicted showed youth across America how a real boy should act.
Rockwell, Norman. We, Too, Have a Job to Do, Media print lithograph on paper, 1944. Calendar Illustration for the Boy Scouts of America for Brown & Bigelow Co.
Did the Boy Scouts Do Their Best?
This illustration, I Will Do My Best, was also created by Norman Rockwell for a Boy Scouts Calendar in 1945. It features a young boy making the Scout Sign in front of an inscription of the Scout Oath. The Boy Scout calendars were in the homes of millions of Americans by the mid-twentieth century, and works such as this would have inspired boys to join the BSA. The inclusion of the Scout Oath in this image serves as a reminder of what the BSA stood for and what young boys across America should strive to be. But did the Boy Scouts do their best in preparing these young boys to become good, male citizens of America? As seen through this exhibit, the Boy Scouts aimed to train young boys to become the leaders of tomorrow. Among the organization’s ranks have been many great American icons: presidents (John F. Kennedy), athletes (Michael Jordan), astronauts (Neil Armstrong), activists (Martin Luther King, Jr.), entrepreneurs (Bill Gates), and many more. These men are examples of the success of the BSA in shaping the leaders of America.
Rockwell, Norman. I Will Do My Best, Media print lithograph on paper, 1945. Calendar Illustration for the Boy Scouts of America for Brown & Bigelow Co.