Girl Scout History Project

Exhibits, that is. That probably isn’t the best headline for a history blog!

The Archives and History Committee recently changed the exhibit at the Nation’s Capital Council headquarters.

After two months on exhibit, we dismantled “Badges and Biscuits.” This theme covered Girl Guide badges and product sales. It also coincided with our cookie sale and World Thinking Day (February 22).

Girl Guide Badges

The badges date to the late 1950s and early 1960s. They had originally been presented to the former Rockwood national Girl Scout camp by visiting Girl Guides. When that facility closed in 1978, GSUSA left them behind, and they made their way into our council’s collection.

I discovered them wrapped in paper and shoved in a box a few years ago, and I have been looking for an opportunity to share them.

Unfortunately, the foreign badges had been affixed to lengths of burlap with some sort of space-age polymer. I used heat, alcohol, acetone, a jackhammer, and sticks of dynamite to remove them. (OK, not the last two, but I was seriously contemplating it.)

• 

• 

• 

• 

After nearly a week, I had them all removed. I remounted them on 12″x12″ scrapbook paper so that they could fit into frames for display now and stored into scrapbook-sized envelopes after.

I was delighted with the results:

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

Girl Guide Biscuits

We filled one display case with the Girl Guide badges, the other was devoted to Girl Guide cookie sales. We also had some Girl Guide cookie patches to tie the theme together.

I learned a lot from Girl Guide websites and historians. I stuck largely to English-language sources, so the examples are drawn from a small number of countries.

UK and Ireland

British Girl Guides do not sell cookies. The Girl Guiding historians I contacted seemed quite proud of this fact.

In contrast, Irish Girl Guides only began selling packets of chocolate chip biscuits in fall 2017. Officials introduced the new program to help “change the imbalance of the number of women in decision-making position across the various sectors of society such as businesses, companies, and boardrooms around Ireland.”

• 

• 

Canada

Canadian Girl Guides have two categories of cookies (sandwich and mint). One is sold in the fall; the other in the spring.

They also have an impressive cookie badge curriculum that includes lessons on the history of their cookie sales and samples of vintage posters, cookie boxes, and other memorabilia.

Australia and New Zealand

Australian Girl Guides have sold cookies for decades, but they are limited to one weekend across the entire country. Think of one mega booth sale.

Girl Guides in New Zealand kicked off their first biscuit sale in 1957, which grew to selling 28 million boxes per year. But March 2019 marked the last national Girl Guide biscuit sale in New Zealand. The organization plans to seek new fundraising programs for the future as biscuit sales provided one-third of its budget.

Keep following the Girl Scout History Project to see our latest installation!

©2019 Ann Robertson