Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class, a production
Speaker 1: of I Heart Radios How Stuff Works. Hello, and welcome
Speaker 1: to the podcast. I'm Tracy V. Wilson and I'm Holly Fry. Holly,
Speaker 1: were you ever a Girl Scout? No? I was a
Speaker 1: camp fire girl, really yeah, and I actually like um.
Speaker 1: For many years, I was pretty snooty about that fact.
Speaker 1: I was. Really I was a camp fire girl when
Speaker 1: I lived outside of Seattle when I was little, and
Speaker 1: then we moved to Florida and the only option was
Speaker 1: Girl Scouts. And I may have made some disparaging comments
Speaker 1: about how I thought my uniform was a lot sharper
Speaker 1: than the Girl Scout ones. But that's because I was
Speaker 1: not a nice child, just like I was an adult.
Speaker 1: I was a Brownie and that was as far as
Speaker 1: I got because for reasons I really cannot put my
Speaker 1: finger on at this point, you know, all my forty
Speaker 1: years later, I didn't enjoy brownies as much. Uh. And
Speaker 1: I was also in four H and when I was
Speaker 1: getting ready to move up in school, my mom was like,
Speaker 1: we should pick one of these two activities, and I
Speaker 1: picked four h rather than going on farther with the
Speaker 1: Girl Scouts. But anyway, that was probably smarter than what
Speaker 1: I did, which was always just add more activities, just
Speaker 1: like I do is an adult. Yeah, my mom was
Speaker 1: the person who was responsible for all of the driving
Speaker 1: when it came to these kinds of activities. So I
Speaker 1: think this was largely my mom wanting one less thing
Speaker 1: to have to ship us all the way from way
Speaker 1: out in the country to slightly less far out in
Speaker 1: the country. Anyway, we're having this conversation because today we
Speaker 1: have the extremely frequent listener request of Juliette Gordon Lowe,
Speaker 1: who was the founder of the Girl Scouts to the
Speaker 1: United States of America. And when I say a frequent
Speaker 1: listener request, this is just from the last couple of
Speaker 1: years of email and our Twitter mentions, and it has
Speaker 1: come from Becky, Camille, Sarah, Katie, Anna, Alison, Lindsay, Nicola
Speaker 1: and Amy and I know, farther back in the world
Speaker 1: of things we can no longer really search easily, there
Speaker 1: are other people who have asked for us to talk
Speaker 1: about her. Aside from the fact that so many people
Speaker 1: have asked us to talk about juliet Gordon Lowe, really
Speaker 1: a lot of things about her life surprised me and
Speaker 1: are very different from what I imagined her life to
Speaker 1: be like before getting into this. If the only pictures
Speaker 1: of her you have seen are the ones from later
Speaker 1: in her life in her Scout uniform, she looks like
Speaker 1: an almost totally different person from her pictures from her youth.
Speaker 1: So I was very intrigued by all that. Juliette Gordon
Speaker 1: Lowe was born Juliette McGill Kinzie Gordon on October thirty one,
Speaker 1: eighteen sixty. She was nicknamed Daisy, and that's still the
Speaker 1: name that she's known by in much of the world
Speaker 1: of Girl Scouts, as well as by some of her biographers.
Speaker 1: H and her parents were William Washington Gordon the second
Speaker 1: and Eleanor Kinsey Gordon, who is known as Nellie. Juliette
Speaker 1: was the second of six children. Her siblings were Eleanor, Alice, William, Mabel,
Speaker 1: and Arthur. The family were committed Episcopalians who attended Christ
Speaker 1: Church in Savannah, Georgia. The gardens were a really good
Speaker 1: example of how one family could have complicated loyalties during
Speaker 1: the U. S Civil War. William's family had been in
Speaker 1: Georgia for generations, and part of their wealth came from
Speaker 1: the cotton industry, so in addition to having an enslaved
Speaker 1: workforce at the Gordon home, their income was coming from
Speaker 1: enslaved labor. But then Nellie's family conversely went all the
Speaker 1: way back to the founders of Chicago, Illinois, and in
Speaker 1: general they were opposed to slavery, and some of them
Speaker 1: were dedicated abolitionists. So in very broad strokes, Nellie's and
Speaker 1: William's families were on opposite sides of the war. The
Speaker 1: men in Nellie's family served in the US military, while
Speaker 1: Williams served to the Confederacy, But at the same time
Speaker 1: it was more complicated than that. Nellie gradually came to
Speaker 1: believe that the war was necessary for Southern independence, and
Speaker 1: that Southern independence itself was necessary. But even then, after
Speaker 1: Savannah surrendered, she entertained people like US General William too
Speaker 1: come to sherman at the family home. Juliette, of course,
Speaker 1: is only six months old when the war started, so
Speaker 1: she was too young to really understand what was going
Speaker 1: on for most of it as she became a toddler,
Speaker 1: though she was just fiercely loyal to her father and
Speaker 1: sure that whatever he was doing was the right thing.
Speaker 1: Nellie Gordon and the children went to Chicago for the
Speaker 1: last few months of the war, and by the time
Speaker 1: they arrived the whole family was malnourished. Juliette was also
Speaker 1: extremely sick with what her mother described as brain fever,
Speaker 1: and this was kind of a catch all term that
Speaker 1: included serious illnesses like meningitis and encephalitis. Juliette eventually recovered
Speaker 1: from this illness, but she was chronically ill for most
Speaker 1: of her life. She contracted malaria sometime in her youth,
Speaker 1: and she was prone to earaches and ear infections that
Speaker 1: could cause her to temporarily lose summer all of her hearing.
Speaker 1: These ear infections and her malaria tended to recur anytime
Speaker 1: she was exhausted or stressed or sick with something else,
Speaker 1: and she was also prone to abscesses, including in her ears,
Speaker 1: and then later on in her life, she developed gout.
Speaker 1: Once the Civil War was over, the Gordon's returned to Savannah,
Speaker 1: and from that point overall Juliette had a happy childhood.
Speaker 1: The family had to adjust to a new economy, one
Speaker 1: that did not rely on enslaved labor, but Juliette was
Speaker 1: not really conscious of this shift. She was accident prone
Speaker 1: and eccentric, which led her family to start calling her
Speaker 1: crazy Daisy. Her eccentricity also carried over to her written correspondence,
Speaker 1: which tended to have so many spelling mistakes that historians
Speaker 1: have speculated that she actually had a learning disability. And
Speaker 1: there are scans of a lot of her letters online,
Speaker 1: and in addition to there being a lot of mistakes,
Speaker 1: there is a lot of talk about the mistakes and
Speaker 1: how many there are. She also had a very kind
Speaker 1: and generous heart. She and her friends like to put
Speaker 1: on plays and sell tickets to them to raise money
Speaker 1: for charities, including some that were set out to help
Speaker 1: Native Americans. One of her favorite plays to stage was
Speaker 1: about Mary, Queen of Scott's. Another of her childhood projects
Speaker 1: included a short lived club called Helping Hands, which was
Speaker 1: meant to help people who were less fortunate than they were,
Speaker 1: but this club had to be disbanded during an epidemic
Speaker 1: of yellow fever. You could describe some of her childhood
Speaker 1: work as it's the thought that counts. Some of Juliet's
Speaker 1: family called Helping Hands helpless hands because, for example, they
Speaker 1: wanted to make clothes to donate to a family in need,
Speaker 1: but they really didn't know how to do that, so
Speaker 1: the results of their labors were not really wearable. Ideas.
Speaker 1: Yeah they were. They were trying to make clothes for people,
Speaker 1: and they didn't They didn't really know how to sew.
Speaker 1: Starting when she was twelve, Juliette was educated in a
Speaker 1: series of boarding schools, two of them in Virginia, one
Speaker 1: in New Jersey, and then a French finishing school called
Speaker 1: Mademoiselle Charbonnier in New York City. She made several very
Speaker 1: close friends in these schools, including Abby Lippett and Mary
Speaker 1: Gail Carter, who were her very best friends for the
Speaker 1: rest of her life. She also studied art in New York,
Speaker 1: including sculpture and painting, and she became very good at
Speaker 1: painting onto China. In eighty tragedy struck the Gordon family.
Speaker 1: Juliette's seventeen year old sister, Alice died of scarlet fever.
Speaker 1: The entire family was grief stricken. Juliet's older sister, Eleanor
Speaker 1: was away in Europe, so since Juliette was then the
Speaker 1: oldest daughter at home, she had to keep things running
Speaker 1: while her mother was consumed with grief. Juliette also tried
Speaker 1: to keep her chin up and suthe the rest of
Speaker 1: the family's heartbreak that on its own would have just
Speaker 1: been a huge load to try to shoulder, but to
Speaker 1: make things even harder, Juliette's mother interpreted her sort of
Speaker 1: soldiering on as evidence that she wasn't all that sad
Speaker 1: about her sister. Nellie accused Juliette of being selfish and shallow,
Speaker 1: and Juliette knew that, in her own words quote, there
Speaker 1: is more than one kind of sorrow, and that born
Speaker 1: in silence is not less genuine because it is not
Speaker 1: always seen. But Juliett also did worry that maybe her
Speaker 1: sister Alice had died thinking that she didn't love her.
Speaker 1: I feel like this whole thing is like evidence of
Speaker 1: how grief can just mess with people, like, oh yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm sure her mom also was seeing that through a
Speaker 1: veil of her own grief and like did not have
Speaker 1: the magnanimity of heart available to be like, oh no,
Speaker 1: this is just how she's doing it, um yea. And
Speaker 1: they had they sort of butted heads a lot for
Speaker 1: for pretty much all of of Juliette's life. They had
Speaker 1: personalities that conflicted with each other a lot of times
Speaker 1: and in ways that could just come off as seeming
Speaker 1: like they were angry at each other, but it was
Speaker 1: really more like they just had different ways of approaching
Speaker 1: the world, the misunderstandings of family. But in the midst
Speaker 1: of all of this emotional turmoil, Juliette became acquainted with
Speaker 1: William mackay Lowe. His family had previously been the Gordon's
Speaker 1: neighbors in Savannah, but they had moved to England in
Speaker 1: eighteen sixty seven. Because Juliet's father, brother, and now love
Speaker 1: interest were all named William, h We're gonna call this
Speaker 1: William by his nickname of Billow, just to try to
Speaker 1: simplify a little bit, especially because we're going to get
Speaker 1: to parts where multiple Williams are in the same room.
Speaker 1: Below was very handsome, and he listened to all of
Speaker 1: Juliette's grief about her sister and her frustrations with her
Speaker 1: relationship with her mother. Juliette compared these conversations with him
Speaker 1: to her most intimate friendships with her girlfriends in boarding school.
Speaker 1: Less than three months after Alice's death, Juliette was deeply
Speaker 1: in love with Billow, and she was also ashamed of
Speaker 1: those feelings because she thought that she should really still
Speaker 1: be mourning her sister and not finding joy with a
Speaker 1: young man. On top of that, she knew that her
Speaker 1: family was not going to approve of this match. The
Speaker 1: Gordons were very well off, but they also valued hard work,
Speaker 1: and Billow did not. He was set to inherit a
Speaker 1: massive fortune when his father died, and he had no
Speaker 1: plans to work at all, and Billow's family wouldn't have
Speaker 1: approved of juliet either. Billow's father had made it clear
Speaker 1: that he did not want his son to marry an
Speaker 1: American or Mary during his own lifetime at all. So
Speaker 1: Juliette and Billow courted in secret. They wrote to each
Speaker 1: other after Billow went back to England, but eventually he
Speaker 1: stopped writing to her, and at first juliet I just
Speaker 1: thought something must have gotten misdirected or lost in the mail,
Speaker 1: But as time went on with still no more letters,
Speaker 1: she became determined to go see him and find out
Speaker 1: what was going on. To that end, in two juliet
Speaker 1: convinced her parents to let her take a tour of Europe,
Speaker 1: as her older sister had done, but really she was
Speaker 1: on a secret mission to find Billow and get him
Speaker 1: to answer for his behavior. And we're going to talk
Speaker 1: about all of that after we first pause for a
Speaker 1: little sponsor break. So, as we said earlier, the Gordons
Speaker 1: and the Lowe's had been neighbors back in Savannah. They
Speaker 1: were family friends, so it was reasonable for juliet to
Speaker 1: go call on Billow's sisters while she was in England.
Speaker 1: She didn't do that. She paid them a visit, she
Speaker 1: did not tell them why she was really there. It
Speaker 1: turned out that Billow was not home that day, but
Speaker 1: Juliette did manage to take a look around the house
Speaker 1: and find his room. His mirror was covered with letters
Speaker 1: and sketches that she had sent to him, but not
Speaker 1: from anything from her more recent correspondence. She concluded that
Speaker 1: Billow's father had discovered their letters and was keeping her
Speaker 1: mail from him. Juliette went on her tour of the
Speaker 1: European continent, but she was driven to distraction by the
Speaker 1: thought of seeing Billow the whole time. She finally resigned
Speaker 1: herself to the idea that it just wasn't going to happen.
Speaker 1: Shortly before she returned home, she sent him a telegram
Speaker 1: that said goodbye. I sail on the Gala. But then
Speaker 1: and a drum add a turn of events. Just before
Speaker 1: the ship set sail, one of the crew brought her
Speaker 1: a telegram of her own, and it was from Billow,
Speaker 1: who revealed that he had been looking for her as well.
Speaker 1: This is such a good movie moment, and it did
Speaker 1: lift Juliette's spirits, but not for long. She decided that
Speaker 1: a relationship would Billow just could not work out. Both
Speaker 1: of their families objected, and on top of that, Billow
Speaker 1: was going to spend the next few years studying at Oxford. Juliette, though,
Speaker 1: was I mean. She was an available, attractive, lovely young woman,
Speaker 1: and on the way home she caught the eye of
Speaker 1: another passenger on the ship. This was a captain who
Speaker 1: fell for her completely, but as soon as she realized
Speaker 1: that he was serious about her, Juliette rejected him because
Speaker 1: if she could not have Billow, she did not want anyone.
Speaker 1: She had made her formal debut into society, and after
Speaker 1: getting home again, she received other proposals as well, and
Speaker 1: she turned all of them down. Two years later, one
Speaker 1: of Juliette's sisters got married and that brought all of
Speaker 1: her feelings about Billow back to the surface. She came
Speaker 1: up with another reason to go abroad, this time to
Speaker 1: visit her school friend Mary, but once again Juliet's real
Speaker 1: motive was to try to see Billow. She left in
Speaker 1: May of eighty four, two years after deciding to give
Speaker 1: Billow up and four years after having met him in
Speaker 1: the first place. Even though she was there to visit Mary,
Speaker 1: Juliette accepted an invitation to stay with the Low sisters,
Speaker 1: and of course this was because she hoped it would
Speaker 1: let her run into their brother. This time, this worked.
Speaker 1: Juliette and Billow confess their loved each other in person,
Speaker 1: and then once again they decided, because of all those
Speaker 1: reasons from two years ago that still existed, not to
Speaker 1: pursue it. Juliette reunited with Mary's family in Scotland, and
Speaker 1: they were a little annoyed to learn what had been
Speaker 1: going on with that visit to the Lows, And before
Speaker 1: she went back to the United States, Juliette paid the
Speaker 1: Lows yet another visit. While she was there, she and
Speaker 1: Below saw one another again, and then the two of
Speaker 1: them decided, in spite of all of those law tical reasons,
Speaker 1: that they had previously decided against it to actually try
Speaker 1: to be together. About six months later, in January, the
Speaker 1: ear pain that had been troubling Juliette off and on
Speaker 1: for much of her life became really acute. She went
Speaker 1: to a specialist who tried a procedure involving silver nitrate,
Speaker 1: and there were some complications, and that led to even
Speaker 1: more pain and the loss of most of her hearing.
Speaker 1: In that year. Billow was visiting at the time, and
Speaker 1: he was there for Juliette as she went through a
Speaker 1: long series of procedures and visits to specialists, all to
Speaker 1: try to repair the damage to her ear, and this
Speaker 1: was what led Juliette's father, William to alter his opinion
Speaker 1: about whether Billow was right for his daughter. Juliette was
Speaker 1: in pain and felt terrible about this whole situation, not
Speaker 1: just because of her health, but also because a lot
Speaker 1: of blame was being thrown around about exactly whose fault
Speaker 1: this situation was. Billow boosted her spirits and William reluctantly
Speaker 1: he agreed to give the couple his blessing williams us
Speaker 1: and came with some conditions, though Billow had to live
Speaker 1: within his financial means. The couple needed to spend at
Speaker 1: least six months of each year in Savannah, and Billow's father, Andrew,
Speaker 1: had to agree that Billow would continue to have his
Speaker 1: financial support. There was just no way that William was
Speaker 1: going to allow his daughter to get married if there
Speaker 1: was a chance that her husband might wind up cut
Speaker 1: off from his inheritance for some reason, which would have
Speaker 1: left him with no way of supporting her. Finally, William
Speaker 1: and Andrew finished their negotiation for the marriage, which included
Speaker 1: a year long engagement starting when Billow headed back to
Speaker 1: England in February of But what none of the Gordons
Speaker 1: really knew at this point was that Billow's reputation back
Speaker 1: in London would have been considered scandalous. In Savannah, he
Speaker 1: ran in the same circles as Edward Albert, also known
Speaker 1: as Bertie, Prince of Wales, whose life was full of
Speaker 1: affairs and scandals. The Gordons and their friends all knew
Speaker 1: about the reputation of the Prince of Wales, but they
Speaker 1: didn't know that Billow was connected to that same circle
Speaker 1: and was regarded in kind of the same way. They
Speaker 1: got a glimpse of it during the engagement, though, when
Speaker 1: Billow placed a bet on a horse race that was
Speaker 1: so big that it was covered in the press, the
Speaker 1: Gordons were livid, and Juliette tried to downplay the bet
Speaker 1: as something that he had placed on behalf of several
Speaker 1: other people and not something that was entirely his own money. Then,
Speaker 1: on June six, Billow's father died, he came into his
Speaker 1: whole inheritance. Juliette and Billow decided not to put off
Speaker 1: the wedding in light of Andrew's death, and they got
Speaker 1: married on December six. After the wedding, as guests were
Speaker 1: showering the couple with rice, Juliette got a grain of
Speaker 1: rice stuck in her ear, that same ear that had
Speaker 1: gone through all of those complications the year before. After
Speaker 1: the honeymoon, when she hadn't been able to dislodge it,
Speaker 1: Juliette went to the doctor to try to have the
Speaker 1: rice removed, and all of this damaged her ear even further,
Speaker 1: and she lost almost all of her hearing in it.
Speaker 1: She also contracted bronchitis and spent most of the first
Speaker 1: months of her marriage too sick to even climb the
Speaker 1: stairs in their home in early May of eight seven,
Speaker 1: Juliette started losing the hearing in her other ear as well.
Speaker 1: She consulted a doctor who suggested that it was a
Speaker 1: sympathetic reaction to her previous hearing loss. She saw a
Speaker 1: number of specialists and tried different treatments over the rest
Speaker 1: of her life, but none of them ever restored her hearing.
Speaker 1: It was something that sometimes she would improve as maybe
Speaker 1: her ear drum healed up a little, but then a
Speaker 1: lot of times it would get worse again. Her hearing
Speaker 1: loss didn't affect her speech, but she couldn't always understand
Speaker 1: people when they were speaking to her. Juliette had a
Speaker 1: really hard time adjusting to being a gentleman's wife. At first,
Speaker 1: they didn't have a permanent home of their own, and
Speaker 1: they were releasing large estates in England and Scotland. Billow
Speaker 1: finally bought a fifty five acre estate in Warwickshire in
Speaker 1: eighteen eighty nine, which they expanded to include twenty bedrooms
Speaker 1: huge stables. Juliette really loved finally having a permanent place
Speaker 1: of her own. It also made it easier for her
Speaker 1: to be a little philanthropic. Billow was really opposed to
Speaker 1: the idea of her dedicating herself to philanthropy full time.
Speaker 1: He seemed to think that it would lead her to
Speaker 1: judge his life of idleness, so she tended to do
Speaker 1: smaller things like visiting people in need and donating vegetables
Speaker 1: and flowers from their gardens. Juliette really wanted to be useful, though,
Speaker 1: and she finally got the chance to do that during
Speaker 1: the Spanish American War. Her mother back during the Civil
Speaker 1: War had hated being separated from her father, so Nellie
Speaker 1: had made the decision that she would accompany William to
Speaker 1: Florida while where he was going to be serving in
Speaker 1: the military, and she was going to start a convalescent
Speaker 1: home for soldiers there. Juliette traveled back to the United States.
Speaker 1: She joined her mother in Florida, and together they cared
Speaker 1: for men who were recovering from illnesses like malaria, measles,
Speaker 1: and typhoid. Juliette loved having me full work to do,
Speaker 1: and when her father was transferred and Nelly planned to
Speaker 1: go with him, Juliett volunteered to stay behind and continue
Speaker 1: on with the convalescent home. But then the war ended
Speaker 1: in August and that home was closed down. Not long
Speaker 1: after this, Juliette had another major change in her life,
Speaker 1: and we will get to that after another quick sponsor break.
Speaker 1: Juliet's marriage to Billow was really struggling. By the turn
Speaker 1: of the twentieth century. Juliette had surgery to remove abscesses
Speaker 1: and cists from her abdomen, and this may have affected
Speaker 1: her reproductive system as well. Regardless of whether that was
Speaker 1: a factor, she and Billow did not have any children,
Speaker 1: and Juliet really blamed herself about this, and she felt
Speaker 1: a lot of shame about it. I mean, there's still
Speaker 1: some stigma about people who want to have children and
Speaker 1: can't today. This was worse when she was living and
Speaker 1: she she had felt ashamed of the fact that she
Speaker 1: had not had any children. As their marriage went on,
Speaker 1: Billow spent more and more time away from home, and
Speaker 1: his expenses became really extravagant, including spending a lot on
Speaker 1: betting and on race horses. Billow also became involved with
Speaker 1: another woman named Anna Bridges Bateman, and it's not clear
Speaker 1: exactly when that relationship started, but Juliette hosted Anna at
Speaker 1: their home at least once, not knowing that she and
Speaker 1: Billow were having an affair. Anna also stayed in their
Speaker 1: home after Juliette did know about that affair, but Juliette
Speaker 1: felt like she couldn't really say anything about it. By
Speaker 1: nineteen o one, Juliette was talking about pursuing a divorce,
Speaker 1: and this was something that English law made very difficult.
Speaker 1: The most logical option was to seek a divorce on
Speaker 1: the grounds of infidelity. It was clearly what was going on,
Speaker 1: but she didn't really want to do this because it
Speaker 1: meant publicizing to the world that her husband had an affair,
Speaker 1: and Billow did not want her to do it either,
Speaker 1: because it would have meant publicizing to the war world
Speaker 1: who he was having an affair with. In nineteen o two,
Speaker 1: they separated, and by that fall Juliett was realizing that
Speaker 1: she was happier without Billow than she had been with him,
Speaker 1: and Juliette started visiting family and friends and traveling more.
Speaker 1: After a while, Juliette started hearing rumors that Below was
Speaker 1: drinking heavily and that his health was increasingly poor. He
Speaker 1: died on June n o five, at which point he
Speaker 1: and Juliette were still separated but not divorced. He had
Speaker 1: requested for Anna to handle his funeral arrangements, which the
Speaker 1: family agreed to, and he had also rewritten his will,
Speaker 1: leaving almost everything to Anna, including what was supposed to
Speaker 1: be Juliette's annual allowance. With the help of bellow sisters,
Speaker 1: Juliette successfully contested the will. Anna still got a sizeable inheritance,
Speaker 1: but Juliette got a lovesome and annuity and the Low's
Speaker 1: house in Savannah. It was enough for her to be comfortable.
Speaker 1: Less than a year later, an old family friend named
Speaker 1: Archie Hunter proposed to her, but she turned him down,
Speaker 1: describing herself as too old and deaf to try again,
Speaker 1: especially since she was not in love with him. She
Speaker 1: had a whole lot of like, I just don't love
Speaker 1: that guy. He seems to be into me, but I'm
Speaker 1: not that into him. For the next several years after
Speaker 1: her estranged husband's death, Juliette traveled the world. She visited relatives,
Speaker 1: and she did some charitable work, and in a lot
Speaker 1: of ways she was enjoying herself, but she still wanted
Speaker 1: something to do. As always, she wanted to be useful,
Speaker 1: but she couldn't really find a cause that really just
Speaker 1: captured her heart. This lack of direction changed basically overnight
Speaker 1: when she met General Sir Robert Baden Powell in nineteen eleven.
Speaker 1: Biden Powell was regarded as a war hero for his
Speaker 1: leadership during the Siege of Mafficking in the Boer Wars.
Speaker 1: He was also the founder of the Boy Scouts. I
Speaker 1: have that siege on my list for a potential future
Speaker 1: episode because of course it is a lot more complicated
Speaker 1: than that. Uh, And Biden Powell is not universally regarded
Speaker 1: as a hero depending on who you're talking to, But
Speaker 1: we've also had just a lot of nineteenth and twentieth
Speaker 1: century lately, so maybe on like a little farther down
Speaker 1: the road. So uh is being the founder of the
Speaker 1: Boy Scouts makes a sound as though founding the Boy
Speaker 1: Scouts was something he intentionally set out to do, but
Speaker 1: really it was almost an accident. During his career with
Speaker 1: the British Army, Biden Powell wrote a couple of books
Speaker 1: about scouting. They were meant to teach military men about
Speaker 1: reconnaissance and about being a soldier. And then when he
Speaker 1: got back to Britain after serving in the Boer Wars,
Speaker 1: he was surprised to discover that groups of boys had
Speaker 1: been using these books to organize themselves into little scouting patrols,
Speaker 1: often with their own names for the patrol and their
Speaker 1: own uniforms. At the time, British society was concerned about
Speaker 1: whether boys and young men were self reliant enough, and
Speaker 1: whether British citizens were adequately prepared from a mill terry perspective,
Speaker 1: so people started calling for Baden Powell to formalize these patrols,
Speaker 1: and the result of that was the Boy Scouts. And
Speaker 1: of course there were girls who were interested in scouting
Speaker 1: as well, and some girls had formed their own patrols
Speaker 1: already or had tried to join in with the boys.
Speaker 1: But Biden Powell and others thought that it was best
Speaker 1: to separate these groups by gender, so he enlisted his
Speaker 1: sister Agnes to start the corresponding girl Guides. When Juliette
Speaker 1: Gordon Lowe met Robert Baden Powell and learned about the
Speaker 1: Scouting movement, that was it. At the age of fifty one,
Speaker 1: low had found her life's work. Scouting combined so many
Speaker 1: traits that had been central to her life and her worldview.
Speaker 1: She had always wanted to be helpful. She had a
Speaker 1: strong sense of civic duty. She loved the outdoors, including
Speaker 1: hiking and hunting. Some of the most important relationships in
Speaker 1: her life were friendships with other girls now women, that
Speaker 1: she had made when she was young. Her religious faith,
Speaker 1: and her compassion, and her idea that childhood should be
Speaker 1: fun and happy. It was all right there in the
Speaker 1: Scouting movement. She and Biden Powell began working together within
Speaker 1: the Scouting movement in Britain. In nineteen eleven, Low helped
Speaker 1: established two Girl Guy patrols in Scotland and one in England.
Speaker 1: Then in nineteen twelve, she and Biden Powell traveled across
Speaker 1: the Atlantic to bring the Scouting movement to the United States.
Speaker 1: It's clear that there was an attraction between the two
Speaker 1: of them, and, according to some accounts, at one point,
Speaker 1: while they were working together in the UK, he proposed
Speaker 1: to her, But on that voyage to New York, Biden
Speaker 1: Powell became secretly engaged to another passenger named Alive st
Speaker 1: Clair Solmes. We don't really know how Low felt about this.
Speaker 1: She found out along with the rest of the world,
Speaker 1: when it was formally announced more than six months later.
Speaker 1: Once she got back to Savannah, Low called her cousin
Speaker 1: Nina Anderson Pape and said, come right over, I've got
Speaker 1: something for the girls of Savannah and all America, and
Speaker 1: we're going to start it tonight. And then they got
Speaker 1: to work establishing Savannah's first Girl Guide's patrol. And although
Speaker 1: a lot of things about this patrol have become part
Speaker 1: of Girl Scout lore, including exactly when they had their
Speaker 1: first meeting, who their first members were, and that one
Speaker 1: of Juliette's nieces was the first to be enrolled, the
Speaker 1: documentation of those first few months is pretty fuzzy. Regardless.
Speaker 1: Though there were several Girl Guide patrols in Savannah, including
Speaker 1: one at the Savannah Female Orphan Asylum, Low particularly wanted
Speaker 1: the Girl Scouts to be a positive force in the
Speaker 1: lives of girls who were living in poverty, so she
Speaker 1: made a special effort to make sure that patrols were
Speaker 1: established for them and that participating was affordable. Those first
Speaker 1: patrols in Savannah often included Catholic, Protestant, and Jewish girls together,
Speaker 1: but in general the patrols were separated by social class.
Speaker 1: Organizers worried that upper class parents would prohibit their daughters
Speaker 1: from participating if less affluent girls were included in the
Speaker 1: same patrol, and in Savannah they were also segregated by race.
Speaker 1: Separate patrols were established for African American girls, including one
Speaker 1: that was led by one of the Gordon family's household staff.
Speaker 1: Juliette's family was happy to see that she had found
Speaker 1: something to occupy herself and that it was clearly making
Speaker 1: her so happy, But at the same time they also
Speaker 1: remembered her being quote crazy Daisy and the group that
Speaker 1: they nicknamed the Helpless Hands, So they really thought Juliette
Speaker 1: might make a mess of this whole thing or just
Speaker 1: lose interest, but the opposite happened. Girl Guides continued to
Speaker 1: grow in n Juliette started contacting the leaders of similar
Speaker 1: organizations for girls, encouraging them to become part of the
Speaker 1: Girl Guides. It was clear that only one organization could
Speaker 1: be viewed as the sister organization to the Boy Scouts,
Speaker 1: and Juliette wanted that to be the Girl Guides, so
Speaker 1: she tried to get the Girl Pioneers, the Campfire Girls,
Speaker 1: and other organizations to join her. This was not altogether successful,
Speaker 1: and sometimes it became outright acrimonious. Low had an ongoing
Speaker 1: dispute with Lynda Beard, who had established the Girl Pioneers
Speaker 1: in nineteen twelve, and Clara Elicitor Lane had also formed
Speaker 1: a group called the Girl Scouts of America in Chicago,
Speaker 1: and she went on to accused low of stealing her
Speaker 1: idea and the name for it, but Juliette Gordon Lowe persisted.
Speaker 1: She carried on after her father died in nineteen twelve,
Speaker 1: after she learned about Robert Baden Powell's secret engagement, and
Speaker 1: after other women she recruited to help moved on to
Speaker 1: different things. She also traveled back and forth between the
Speaker 1: US and the UK, helping the movement in Europe and
Speaker 1: bringing new ideas and techniques back to the US with her.
Speaker 1: She also focused on taking this movement national in the
Speaker 1: United States, and to that end, she changed the name
Speaker 1: from Girl Guides to Girl Scouts, which is something a
Speaker 1: lot of people did not want her to do at all,
Speaker 1: including Robert Baden Powell. She did, though, eventually convinced him
Speaker 1: to approve of the cha change. Bo also established a
Speaker 1: national headquarters for the Girl Scouts in Washington, d C.
Speaker 1: And it started growing into a formal organization with a
Speaker 1: professional paid staff. In nineteen thirteen, the first US specific
Speaker 1: Girl Scout handbook was published, called How Girls Can Help
Speaker 1: Their Country. As all of this was going on, Low
Speaker 1: was continuing to struggle with her health. All of the
Speaker 1: same illnesses and conditions that have been part of her
Speaker 1: life so far continued to be present. She also underwent
Speaker 1: radium treatment for her gout in the nineteen teens and
Speaker 1: experienced ongoing back pain from an injury. None of this
Speaker 1: stopped her work, though. She kept crossing the Atlantic and
Speaker 1: recruiting leaders and raising money and evangelizing about the Scouting movement.
Speaker 1: By nineteen fourteen, it was essentially a full time job.
Speaker 1: In nineteen fifteen, not directly connected to scouting, Low was
Speaker 1: awarded US Patent one one two to five Liquid Container
Speaker 1: for use with garbage cans or the which was basically
Speaker 1: a folding pattern for a sheet of waterproof paper that
Speaker 1: could be used in conjunction with a garbage can to
Speaker 1: hold liquid and disposed of along with its contents. She
Speaker 1: was also awarded a design patent for the trefoil design
Speaker 1: of the first Girl Scout badge. I guess this could
Speaker 1: really be tangentially connected to scouting because it reminds me
Speaker 1: of the kinds of trash cans we would have at camp.
Speaker 1: Lowe's mother died in February of nineteen seventeen, and by
Speaker 1: then World War One had been going on for nearly
Speaker 1: three years, and Girl Scouts had been flourishing as groups
Speaker 1: of girls dedicated themselves to the war effort. They were
Speaker 1: raising money and rolling bandages and working with the Red
Speaker 1: Cross and generally trying to be of service. There were,
Speaker 1: of course, plenty of administrative headaches and growing pains throughout
Speaker 1: all of this, and there had been concerns that Scouting
Speaker 1: was going to cause girls to become too masculine or
Speaker 1: too headstrong. But in general, by the end of World
Speaker 1: War One, the Girl Scouts were recognizable all across the
Speaker 1: US and generally were associated with being helpful, kind and respectful.
Speaker 1: And then by the nineteen twenties people had started to
Speaker 1: see Girl Scouts as an alternative to the flapper lifestyle.
Speaker 1: Biographer Stacy Cordery described it as quote the antidote to flappers.
Speaker 1: Scouting advocates also viewed the movement as a force for
Speaker 1: world peace because children around the world were participating in
Speaker 1: an organization that had a focus on duty and service
Speaker 1: and common goals no matter what location they were in.
Speaker 1: All of this helped to keep the organization going when
Speaker 1: those immediate wartime needs were over. Throughout all of this,
Speaker 1: the Girl Scout Organization occupied an interesting place in terms
Speaker 1: of social issues. Often it tried to remain politically neutral.
Speaker 1: For example, the organization did not take a formal position
Speaker 1: on the issue of women's suffrage, but at the same time,
Speaker 1: in some ways it was more progressive than other similar
Speaker 1: organizations when many organizations banned black members in any capacity.
Speaker 1: Some of the first patrols in the North were integrated,
Speaker 1: and troops for African American girls existed in the South
Speaker 1: almost from the beginning. The first troop for Native American
Speaker 1: girls was established in nineteen eighteen, although there were almost
Speaker 1: certainly Native girls involved in scouting before that. In ninety two,
Speaker 1: the first Latina group was established in Houston, Texas, and
Speaker 1: in nineteen twenty three, at a time when disability was
Speaker 1: far more visibly stigmatized than it is in the US today,
Speaker 1: the organization decided that Scouts with disabilities would be eligible
Speaker 1: to earn the Golden Eaglet, which was its highest honor,
Speaker 1: and this was something that Lowe argued for strenuously. As
Speaker 1: she was making those arguments, Juliette Gordon Lowe was also
Speaker 1: being treated for breast cancer, which may have been connected
Speaker 1: to her earlier radium treatments. By this point, she had
Speaker 1: stepped down as president of the Girl Scouts, taking the
Speaker 1: role of founder and focusing on expanding scouting internationally. She
Speaker 1: told almost no one about her illness, and she continued
Speaker 1: working even as she got er and developed lead poisoning
Speaker 1: because of one of her treatments. Juliette Gordon Lowe continued
Speaker 1: to work for the international Scouting movement until her death
Speaker 1: on January seventeenth, ninety seven, at the age of sixty six.
Speaker 1: By that point, the Girl Scouts had a hundred and
Speaker 1: sixty eight thousand members and had held national and international
Speaker 1: conferences and established camps for girls. The Girl Scouts had
Speaker 1: moved from homemade uniforms that varied from one group to
Speaker 1: another to standard uniforms that could be purchased, and troops
Speaker 1: had also started selling cookies to raise money. Troops had
Speaker 1: been established all across the United States, including Alaska and Hawaii,
Speaker 1: which weren't states yet, and in Puerto Rico. Juliette Gordon
Speaker 1: Lowe is one of only three Americans to be awarded
Speaker 1: the Silver Fish, which is the highest honor in Girl Guides.
Speaker 1: She earned that award in nineteen nineteen, and honors and
Speaker 1: awards have continued after her death. In ninety four, a
Speaker 1: US Liberty ship was named the S. S. Juliette low
Speaker 1: Juliette Orton Lowe has also been commemorated on a stamp,
Speaker 1: and had schools named after her, and been inducted into
Speaker 1: the National Women's Hall of Fame in Seneca Falls. Her
Speaker 1: birthplace was registered as a National Historical Landmark in nineteen
Speaker 1: sixty five, and a federal building complex was named after
Speaker 1: her in nineteen eighty three. In twelve, she was posthumously
Speaker 1: awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Then Today, of course,
Speaker 1: the Girl Scouts of the United States America still exists.
Speaker 1: There are two point five million members, including about seven
Speaker 1: hundred and fifty thousand adult members and leaders. And man,
Speaker 1: those cookies and the cookies, I I'm not gonna lie. Um.
Speaker 1: I did not imagine that somebody who started an organization
Speaker 1: that has so much focus on being self reliant and
Speaker 1: supporting other girls would have spent so much of her
Speaker 1: young adult life Chason after a boy like that just
Speaker 1: surprised me a little, shouldn't though I might have done
Speaker 1: the same thing if I had been in her place. Yeah, totally.
Speaker 1: I mean I was like one of those kids that
Speaker 1: was raised by a dad who was very much like
Speaker 1: from the time I was little, like you gotta take
Speaker 1: care of yourself all the time. But I still would have,
Speaker 1: you know, chased after a boy. I imagine I wish
Speaker 1: it had been a boy that was more of her affection.
Speaker 1: The heart wants what it wants, Tracy. Yeah, do you
Speaker 1: have a little bit of listener mail. Yeah, this is
Speaker 1: from Janine and it's um it's related to this podcast,
Speaker 1: which just has a completely, uh completely coincidental connection to
Speaker 1: another recent podcast. So Janine says, I'm quite behind on
Speaker 1: your podcast. So I just listened to the episode from
Speaker 1: back in February on Mary Winston Jackson and was delighted
Speaker 1: to hear she was a Girl Scout leader. I'm also
Speaker 1: a Girl Scout leader and was just so excited and
Speaker 1: moved to hear about her work mentoring girls and especially
Speaker 1: in integrating the councils in her area. I was not
Speaker 1: surprised us that she continued to mentor young people throughout
Speaker 1: her life. I think one of the most rewarding parts
Speaker 1: of being a Girl Scout leader is the opportunity to
Speaker 1: mentor girls and young women, and I think Jackson would
Speaker 1: have agreed with me. I just talked to my Daisy
Speaker 1: Troop about courageous and strong women this week as we
Speaker 1: reviewed the courageous and strong part of the Girl Scout Law.
Speaker 1: I was sadly unfamiliar with Mary Winston Jackson before listening
Speaker 1: to your episode, so she did not feature in the discussion,
Speaker 1: but you can bet she will next time we talk
Speaker 1: about it. Thanks so much for the work you do.
Speaker 1: My degrees are in history and related subjects, and I
Speaker 1: appreciate the research you put into the show and the
Speaker 1: sourceless to attach at the end. Keep up the good work, Janine.
Speaker 1: And then Janine also sent us cat pictures, which we
Speaker 1: always appreciate. Her cats are a tabby named Walnut and
Speaker 1: a black wood named Hildegard, of course, named for Hildegard
Speaker 1: von Bingen. I was delighted by all of that and
Speaker 1: delighted to see these cats, So thank you, Janine. Uh
Speaker 1: if you would like to write to us about this
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