March 12, 2019 by Ann Robertson

Flying with Girl Scout Cookies

This poster hangs on a wall at our Archives and History Program Center in Frederick, Maryland. Bright yellow and 28×22″, it always attracts comments.

However, we didn’t know the story behind the picture. We found it in the back of a closet, in a ratty old frame held together with Scotch tape.

Based on the uniforms and the fact that it says “70th Anniversary,” the image is obviously from the early 1980s, presumably 1982.

But the mystery was solved thanks to an old Nation’s Capital newsletter. For Girl Scout Week 1982, Delta Airlines replaced their normal peanut snacks with packets of Trefoil shortbread cookies. Delta bought and distributed 800,000 cookies March 7-13, 1982.

This was the second time an airline joined the national cookie sales. In 1981 United made what was then the largest corporate cookie purchase in history. United included a packet of two Trefoils on every meal tray.

The success of the United program encouraged Delta to participate. Delta went one step further, having their own company artist, Brad Diggers, commemorate Girl Scouts’ 70th birthday with a special painting.

Limited editions of the painting were presented to 15 Girl Scout councils served by Delta. Nation’s Capital has print number 10 of 34.

Happy Birthday, Girl Scouts!!

January 30, 2019 by Ann Robertson

Winter with the Girl Scouts

With record low temperatures across the country, I’m sure you are all wondering what Girl Scouts do in the winter. Admit it.

That simple question is the theme of the current Archives and History Committee display at the main office of the Girl Scout Council of the Nation’s Capital at 4301 Connecticut Ave NW in Washington, DC.

The answer? Lots!

Play Outside

Jessie Dashiell, first head of the Prince George’s County Council, enjoys a day sledding in 1935,

Skiing isn’t as easy as it looks (1955 GSUSA calendar)

Snowball fight! (2003 GSCNC Calendar)

Daisies and a snowman friend (2001 GSCNC Calendar)

Keep Toasty Warm

Girl Scouts have long had many options for frosty fashions. And if they have nothing in their closet, they will knit something themselves!

Girl Scout winter wear

Go Camping!

Personally, I’ll stick with lodge camping in the winter, but some hardy souls will still pitch their tents in the snow.

Winter camping (2002 GSCNC Calendar)

And let’s not forget the brave troop that was rescued by helicopter from Camp Potomac Woods after a surprise snowstorm in 1958. Here they are after arriving at Ft. Belvoir.

dec06ar19

Earn a Badge

There have always been badges appropriate for winter time.

: Winter Sports (1938-62)

: Dog Mushing (Farthest North)

: MCOGL Skiing (discontinued)

: Frosty Fun (1990-2010)

: Winter Sports (1999-2010)

: Skiing and Snowshoeing (1987-96)

March in a Parade

Holiday parades, Martin Luther King Day parades, Presidents’ Day parades, Girl Scouts take part whenever asked. And every four years, there is a presidential inauguration to take part in.

Enjoy Tasty Treats

Bake cookies, decorate gingerbread, sip cocoa, or try a cookie-flavored coffee pod and creamer.

Sell Cookies!

Neither rain, nor sleet, nor snow will distract us from a cookie booth.

My daughter’s last cookie booth, March 2015. We froze our cookies off.

But the absolute best part of the exhibit? New lights.

Finally, everyone can see the treasures on display!

August 12, 2018 by Ann Robertson

Badge Mysteries Solved

Marvelous Mystery, Black Diamond Council

Regular readers of the Girl Scout History Project know that I am obsessed with the former Council’s Own badge program. From the 1950s until the Girl Scout Leadership Experience was introduced in 2011, troops and councils could create badges on topics not already covered by the national Girl Scout program. (More history will come in another post.)

I used my Council’s Own collection as the basis for a website (gscobadge.info) that archives the images and requirements for over 1,000 badges. My intention is to help identify mystery badges and to provide inspiration for new patch programs.

Look, a Council’s Own bug!

Other Girl Scout adults have been bitten by the CO bug, and many people have helped expand the website contents. I see “my” photos across the internet. Of course, the biggest surprise was seeing one of my website photos (unattributed, of course) appropriated for a presentation former CEO Anna-Maria Chavez made at the 2014 National Council Session. (Now I watermark most photos, just in case.)

Why are they showing a photo of my desk?

It is an especially thrilling moment (at least for me) when I finally identify a mystery badge. I’ve cracked the code on several this summer and decided to share them here.

If a mystery badge is on a sash, that provides some major clues: specifically, a council and a rough date. The council indicated on an ID strip may not have created the badge, but it is a start. In addition to knowing the years a particular sash or vest was in use, don’t forget to look at cookie and event patches that have a specific year or two.

I also regularly troll eBay and sometimes I’ll see the mystery badge there. If it’s on a sash, then there are a few more clues.

Next, I do some keyword searches on Newspapers.com. I use the state and year clues to limit the results, and, lately, I’ve had some really good luck.

Searching for “Girl Scout,” badge, and “Tennessee history” gave me 32 results. But when I limited it to the 1970s, based on the badge fabric and design, I found that a troop of girls in Reelfoot Council had created their own Tennessee History badge in 1977.

The design description is a little different, but it is reasonable to think that when the badge was manufactured on a larger scale, the design became more elaborate.

Tennessee History

I also have this patch, which is likely another incarnation of this program.

Staying with the Tennessee theme, I was delighted to acquire this badge around the same time. Opryland USA was a theme park in Nashville from 1972 to 1997. I grew up in Kentucky, about 2.5 hours away, and Opryland was a frequent destination for school, church, and other field trips.

Another search on Newspapers.com turned up several clippings about Girl Scout troops going to Opryland. According to one, there was an annual Girl Scout weekend that included a badge. It sounds like girls had to complete a scavenger hunt across the park’s attractions to earn it.

Index-Journal (June 11, 1987)

Tennessean (June 20, 1975).

1982 World’s Fair

I never attended the Opryland Girl Scout weekend when I was a girl, but my troop did go to the 1982 World’s Fair in Knoxville. I didn’t know at the time there was a World’s Fair badge, but better late than never!

This castle badge has long been one of my favorite mystery badges, and I assumed it was something about fairy tales. Then I saw TWO of them on a single sash from Central Maryland. Someone had added a date to one of them with a pen. Hmmmm…

Back at Newspapers.com, I tried a search using “Girl Scout,” cookie and castle. That came up with over 12,000 hits. When I restricted the findings to 1982 and Maryland, the database returned a much more manageable four articles.

It turns out that Central Maryland sponsored an annual Cookie Castle Contest, with specific themes like fairy tales and famous landmarks. Every Girl Scout who entered received this cute castle badge.

A little more searching turned up photos of some of the creations, especially as more and more councils held their own competitions.

Baltimore Sun 2/20/84

Daily Times 1/26/84

Daily Times 1/22/84

Finally, let me repeat that THESE BADGE PROGRAMS ARE DISCONTINUED. Do not contact Council shops asking to purchase them, because that triggers snippy emails asking me to take down the reference site or portions of it.

Perhaps instead of getting annoyed, council shopkeepers should take the hint and reinstate or update their programs.

May 18, 2017 by Ann Robertson

Cookie Switch?

No, it’s not a new flavor or a blind taste test. It’s a delightful cookie incentive from Little Brownie Bakers in 1994:

The switchplate matches the Volunteer patch from that year:

That makes me think that it was an incentive for Volunteers. But who knows, there may be girls out there who love switchplates.

This exciting new addition to the Nation’s Capital archival collection is on display (and in use!) at our Frederick Archives and History Program Center.

This is one artifact that you can definitely touch!

April 28, 2017 by Ann Robertson

A Brief History of the Cookie Pin

I don’t understand Girl Scout cookie pins.

I know cookie t-shirts, cookie toys, and I have a large collection of cookie patches. I’m even making a cookie patch quilt.

But somewhere between my years selling cookies and my daughter’s cookie season, the cookie pin appeared. Why?

The first cookie pin debuted in the fall 1998 Girl Scout catalog. The requirements are in separate activity guides available from GSUSA.

1998-38

1998-38 text

The pin is a different color each year, but the year is not part of the pin’s design, which guarantees confusion.

In the 2005-2006 guide, then-CEO Kathy Cloninger explains that the cookie pins focus on Girl Scout core values. I can’t complain about that purpose, but it would be nice if those core values were explicitly listed in that guide. (Fortunately they are on the cookie boxes.)

Goal setting
Decision making
Money management
People skills
Business ethics

I also think that it’s nice to have a cookie prize available to all Girl Scouts. Each baker has their own annual theme, which means rival slogans and different cute cartoon animals across the country.

But isn’t that what the various cookie badges do?

Clockwise from top: Cookie Connection, Cookie Biz, Cookies & Dough, Cookies Count

Three cookie themed badges–Cookies Count (Brownies), Cookie Connection (Juniors), and Cookies and Dough (Cadettes and Seniors)–were introduced in 1997. Why add a repetitive set of ugly pins the next year? How are they different? A second badge for Juniors, Cookie Biz, was introduced in 2004.

Introduced in 2011, the current Girl Scout Leadership Experience (GSLE) program also has two cookie badges per level. They are the soulless silkscreened variety, using words as a lame design effort. The requirements overlap with the cookie pin requirements, and now some councils are offering their own patch programs with similar requirements and names. The badge in the left is for Juniors, on the right is a patch for multiple levels.

Junior badge

2016 patch

Confused yet?

But what I really don’t get is why are cookie pins such expensive pieces of junk? I have gotten higher quality jewelry out of gum ball machines. These pins aren’t worth a quarter, much less $2.

I haven’t actually counted, but it certainly seems like the number one item that parents are trying to replace in the various Facebook Girl Scout groups is a cookie pin. The pin backs snap off within days of putting one on a vest. Perhaps they jump off and flee in embarrassment.

How can a girl possibly earn a cookie trifecta–badge, baker patch, and pin–without double-dipping?* There are just so many ways to practice a sales pitch.

Like I said, I just don’t get the cookie pin program.

And I’m not going to put them on my patch quilt!

My patch quilt. It was supposed to be 100 patches for 100 years but I got carried away.

*Double dipping = using one activity toward requirements for two awards.

February 24, 2017 by Ann Robertson

Don’t Buy Cookies from an Aardvark, part 2

My last post shared a cute little booklet, “Don’t Buy Cookies from an Aardvark.”

I didn’t know any backstory about the booklet until reader Arielle Masters contacted me. She said there had been a TV commercial with this theme, but that she couldn’t find a clip online.

There’s a challenge I can’t resist!

After some searching, I found that Arielle was correct. Here’s the full commercial from 1976:

In fact, this is one commercial in a series that has animals pushing sub-standard cookies, including a rooster,

an alligator:

and a panda.

There are many vintage cookie commercials online, why not share them with your troop?

Thanks, Arielle!

February 17, 2017 by Ann Robertson

Don’t Buy Cookies from an Aardvark

I found this treasure in one of our cookie boxes at the GSCNC Archives & History Program Center in Frederick, MD. (An archival box of cookie sale materials, not a box of actual cookies, although I could use one right now…)

It is a letter-size sheet of paper, folded and printed as a booklet, that tells the story of Girl Scout cookies:

(GSCNC Archives)

(GSCNC Archives)

(GSCNC Archives)

The back cover, in tiny print, reads “J. Moore, 51-4 GSCNC.” I assume that this is the work of Jean Moore, who was once an active member of Nation’s Council (and a plaintiff in the Rockwood case).

I suspect there’s a good story behind this delightful tale.

If it has made you half as hungry as it’s made me, try out the Girl Scout Cookie Locator to find cookies close to your location. Look for the girls in green, blue, brown, or khaki, and beware any aardvarks.