“Furthermore, the Girl Scouts are not a symmetrical reflection of the Boy Scouts.”
Apparently there is no relationship at all.
Apparently there is no relationship at all.
BINGO. Goes back to the earliest days of Scouting.
1910 – William Chauncey Langdon of Thetford, VT, and Dr. Luther Halsey Gulick of South Casco, ME, consulted with G. Stanley Hall, Ernest Thompson Seton (BSA Chief Scout), and James West (executive secretary of the BSA) about forming a national organization for girls. On 3/22/1911, Dr. Gulick organized a meeting "To consider ways and means of doing for the girls what the Boy Scout movement is designed to do for the boys". On 4/10/1911, BSA CSE James E. West issued a press release from BSA headquarters in NYC announcing that with the success of the Boy Scout movement a group of preeminent NY men and women were organizing a group to provide outdoor activities for girls, similar to those in the Boy Scout movement. Camp Fire Girls of America was incorporated in Washington, D.C, as a national agency on 3/17/1912. The organization changed its name in 1975 to Camp Fire Boys and Girls when membership eligibility was expanded to include boys. In 2001, the name Camp Fire USA was adopted, and in 2012 it became Camp Fire. Today, Camp Fire stresses its inclusiveness and says it welcomes youth and families regardless of race, creed, gender, social status, disability or sexual orientation.
3/12/1912 - Juliette Gordon “Daisy” Low founded the Girl Guides of America in Savannah, GA. She had met Baden-Powell earlier while living in the U.K. In 1913, it was changed to the Girl Scouts of the United States and the organization was incorporated in 1915. The name was finally changed to the Girl Scouts of the United States of America (GS-USA) in 1947, and was presented a Congressional charter on 3/16/1950.
6/15/1916 - Congress granted an honorific Congressional Charter to the BSA. Congress issued these charters from 1791 – 1992 under Title 36 of the United States Code which outlined the role of Patriotic Societies and Observances in the United States Code.
The charter gave a monopoly to BSA on the use of the name "Scouts," and on insignia and phrases used in scouting. Since 1916, the BSA has used this federal monopoly to aggressively protect its “brand”. In 1917 it sued the United States Boy Scouts, previously known as American Boy Scouts (founded by newspaper magnate William Randolph Hearst), and that organization disappeared the next year. Several other versions of scouting were absorbed into BSA on a friendly basis. By 1930, CSE James West claimed to have stopped 435 groups from the unauthorized use of “Scouting”; this both the use as part of an organizational name and in the use of commercial products. When the Girl Guides of America started, West discouraged the program. West had earlier worked with Luther Gulick when the Camp Fire Girls were established and always considered them to be the sister program of the BSA. When the Girl Scouts refused to give up their name in 1918, West appealed to Baden-Powell with no results. The charter has effectively been made into a decree: outside of the GS-USA, which received a similar congressional charter in 1950, only 1 form of “Scouting” can exist in the U.S. – the BSA. That is why the new Trail Life USA program does not use the word "scout" in its program.
1938 - Tulsa, OK, oil businessman, Waite Phillips donated 36,000 acres of his ranch in north central NM to BSA. Later in 1941 he donated an additional 91,000 acres which brought the total size to 127,000 acres (~40% of his original ranch). As an endowment, he donated the 23-story Philtower (office) Building in Tulsa, OK. These donations were made without any rights of management reserved by the donor. All equipment and livestock were included in the gift with the idea that diversified ranch operations would provide educational benefits to Boy Scouts and would add to the endowment income. In honor of Phillips, BSA renamed the newly donated land Philturn Rocky Mountain Scout Camp. Later the property was renamed Philmont Scout Ranch. Phillips later made an offer to the Campfire Girls and the GS-USA that if they merged their organizations he would make a donation to them equivalent to what he did for the BSA. They declined his offer.