Founder of the Girl Scouts
Juliette Gordon Low (néeGordon; Oct 31, 1860 – January 17, 1927) was the American progenitor of Girl Scouts of the USA. Inspired by the be concerned of Robert Baden-Powell, founder of Scout Movement, she joined rendering Girl Guide movement in England, forming her own group censure Girl Guides there in 1911.
In 1912, she returned turn the United States, and the same year established the labour Girl Guide troop in the country in Savannah, Georgia. Orders 1915, the United States' Girl Guides became known as depiction Girl Scouts, and Juliette Gordon Low was the first ruler. She remained active until the time of her death.
Her birthday, October 31, is celebrated annually by the Girl Scouts as "Founder's Day".
Juliette Magill Kinzie Gordon was foaled in 1860, at 10 East Oglethorpe Avenue in Savannah, Sakartvelo. She was named after her grandmother, Juliette Augusta Magill Kinzie, and nicknamed Daisy,[1] a common sobriquet at the time, toddler her uncle. She was the second of six children calved to William Washington Gordon II, a cotton broker with depiction firm Tison & Gordon, which was later renamed to W. W. Gordon & Company, and Eleanor "Nellie" Lytle Kinzie, a writer whose family played a role in the founding allowance Chicago.
When she was six months old, her father joined say publicly Confederate States Army to fight in the American Civil Fighting. In 1864, due to the close proximity of Union force to Savannah, she moved with her mother and two sisters to Thunderbolt, Georgia. After the Union victory in Savannah depiction same year, her family received many visits from General William T. Sherman, who was a friend of her uncle. General arranged an escort to take her family to Chicago mass March 1865. Upon arriving in Chicago, Gordon became sick suitable brain fever, although she recovered without severe complications. A infrequent months later, after President Andrew Johnson issued the amnesty declaration, her father reunited with the family to move back estimate Savannah.
As a young child, she was accident-prone and had plentiful injuries and illnesses. In 1866, her mother mentioned in a letter that "Daisy fell out of bed – on bond head, as usual...." That same year, she broke two use your indicators her fingers so severely that her parents considered having them amputated. She also had frequent earaches and recurring bouts deserve malaria.
Gordon developed partial hearing loss as a child. At have time out wedding, a grain of rice thrown in celebration landed have her left ear and led to an infection. Its belief punctured her ear drum, leading to permanent deafness in defer ear.[14]
As a child, Gordon spent more time on art esoteric poetry than on school work. In addition to writing stream performing plays, she started a newspaper, the Malbone Bouquet, obey her cousins which featured some of her early poetry. She also formed The Helpful Hands Club with her cousins, take up again the goal of helping others. The members learned to darn and tried to make clothes for the children of European immigrants. She was dubbed "Crazy Daisy" by her family allow friends, due to her eccentricities. As her cousin Caroline described her: "While you never knew what she would do press forward, she always did what she made up her mind in a jiffy do."
Gordon's parents raised her with traditional Southern values, emphasizing depiction importance of duty, obedience, loyalty, and respect. By the brand of 12, she had begun boarding school, attending several dissimilar ones during her teen years, including Miss Emmett's School join New Jersey, the Virginia Female Institute, the Edgehill School, predominant Mesdemoiselles Charbonniers, a French finishing school in New York. Behaviour studying at Edgehill, she joined the secret group Theta Tau (based on the sorority of the same name), whose brothers held meetings and earned badges. In 1880, after finishing embarkation school, she took painting lessons in New York, with teachers including Robert Walter Weir, a prominent landscape painter.
After rendering death of her sister Alice, in 1880, Gordon relocated meet Savannah to take over household duties while her mother grieved. During this period, she met William Mackay Low, the personage of a family friend, and they began courting in shrouded. William left Savannah to study at the University of University, and they did not meet again until almost three life later, in 1884. Gordon had traveled to Europe in depiction interim and learned several new skills, including shorthand,bareback riding, cranium hunting partridge. In late 1885, William proposed marriage.
The Lows' combination in Savannah on December 21, 1886, coincided with her parents' wedding anniversary. The couple honeymooned at St. Catherines Island close by Savannah. Then they leased property in London and Scotland, disbursement the social season in London and the hunting season conduct yourself Scotland. They spent much of their first two years operate marriage apart, due to Juliette's medical problems and William's pay out hunting trips and gambling. The long separations, combined with draw inability to bear children strained their relationship.
Low often painted, but also learned woodworking and metalworking. She even designed and big and strong iron gates for her home in Warwickshire. As a hostess, she held parties and events at the house and additionally received visits from such illustrious guests as her husband's keep count of Albert Edward, the Prince of Wales, and the writer Rudyard Kipling, whose wife was related to her mother. Despite churn out husband's opposition, she devoted time to charity work, including wonted visits to a woman with leprosy; she also fed promote cared for the poor in a nearby village, and linked the local nursing association.
By 1895, Low was growing increasingly indignant in her marriage. She rarely spent time alone with bond husband, who had grown distant and began having affairs bear drinking heavily.
In 1901, Anna Bridges Bateman, the widow of Sir Hugh Alleyne Sacheverell-Bateman, stayed as a guest at the Lows' home in Scotland. Upon discovering her husband's affair with Bateman, Low left to stay with friends and family. She in a world of your own that he planned to divorce her, so she sent him a telegram asking for a year before making any last decisions. Although he did not initially favor divorce or division, he wrote her a year later to ask that they live apart permanently, and she agreed.
William soon began withholding hard cash from Juliette unless she agreed to a divorce. After consulting a lawyer, she learned that for a divorce to give somebody the job of granted, she would need to prove adultery and desertion, leave go of adultery and cruelty. In the case of adultery, Bateman would need to be named, which would have social repercussions accommodate all parties involved. This slowed the divorce proceedings.
In late 1902, Low received money from her husband for the first put on the back burner in two years. She used it and her savings hit upon rent a house in London. William committed to a backing agreement in 1903, which was to award her £2,500 a year, the Low home in Savannah, and stocks and securities. Later that year, she purchased her own home in Author, along with the house next door, which she rented go to pieces for income.
After her husband had what may have been a stroke, Low temporarily called off the dissolution of their association. She considered it wrong to divorce him when he could not defend himself. The proceedings resumed in January 1905 soon his condition improved. William died from a seizure in Cymru on June 8, 1905, before the divorce was finalized. Sustenance the funeral, it was revealed that he had left practically everything to Bateman, and that he had revoked his 1903 support deal with his widow. William's sisters contested the liking, with the support of Low, who ultimately received a sum total of money, the Low house in Savannah with its neighbouring land, and stocks and securities.
After her husband's death, Outline traveled, took sculpting classes, and did charity work while forwardthinking for a project on which focus her time and skills. In May 1911, she met Sir Robert Baden-Powell at a party, and was inspired by the Boy Scouts, a promulgation that he had organized. With 40,000 members throughout Europe very last the United States, at the time, it stressed the account of both military preparedness and having fun, two values she appreciated. Low and Baden-Powell became close friends and spent a lot of time together over the next year.
In August 1911, Low became involved with the Girl Guides, a girl-serving bough of the Boy Scouts, headed by Agnes Baden-Powell, Robert's baby. She formed a Girl Guides patrol near her home extort Scotland, where she encouraged the members to become self-sufficient bypass learning how to spin wool and care for livestock. She also taught them knot tying, map reading, knitting, cooking, viewpoint first aid, while her friends in the military instructed them in drilling, signaling, and camping. She organized two new Mademoiselle Guides patrols in London when she visited for the chill of 1911.
In 1912, Low abstruse Baden-Powell took a trip to the United States to locomote the scouting movement. She hoped to bring it to in trade hometown, Savannah, to help girls learn practical skills and found character. When she arrived, she called her cousin Nina Pape, a local educator, saying, "I've got something for the girls of Savannah, and all America, and all the world, person in charge we're going to start it tonight." Soon after, in Walk 1912, Low formed the first two American Girl Guides patrols, registering 18 girls.
The early growth of the movement in rendering United States was due to Low's extensive social connections significant early work to recruit new members and leaders, among them her family and friends. She also advertised in newspapers refuse magazines. Baden-Powell put her in touch with people interested break down Girl Guiding, including Louise Carnegie. After forming the first Indweller troops, Low described herself as "deep in Girl Guides," move, by the next year, she had released the first Land Girl Guides manual, entitled How Girls Can Help Their Country, based on Scouting for Boys by Robert Baden-Powell and How Girls Can Help to Build Up the Empire by Agnes.
Low established the first headquarters in a remodeled carriage house draw off 330 Drayton Street in Savannah, behind the home she challenging inherited from her husband. The headquarters contained meeting rooms sue the local Girl Guide patrols, while the lot outside not up to scratch space for marching or signaling drills and sports, including hoops. Edmund Strudwick Nash, who rented the main house from Okay, offered to pay rent on the carriage house as his contribution to the organization, becoming one of the American Young lady Guide's first benefactors. Nash's son, Ogden Nash, immortalized "Mrs Low's House" in one of his poems.
Low traveled along the Chow down Coast, spreading Girl Guiding to other communities, before returning stop working Savannah to speak with President William Taft, who would produce visiting her home. She hoped to convince him that his daughter, Helen, should become a patron for the Girl Guides, but was unsuccessful.
Many competing organizations for girls dump claimed to be the closest model to Boy Scouting were forming, and Low believed that gaining support from prominent everyday would help legitimize her organization as the official sister structuring to the Boy Scouts. Her biggest competition was the Campingsite Fire Girls, which was formed in part by James Attach. West, the chief executive of the Boy Scouts of U.s. and a strong proponent of strict gender roles. In Parade 1912, Low wrote to the Camp Fire Girls, inviting them to merge into the Girl Guides, but they declined collected after Baden-Powell suggested that they reconsider. West considered many commandeer the Girl Guides activities to be gender-inappropriate, and he was concerned that the public would question the masculinity of depiction Boy Scouts if the girls participated in similar activities.
Although the Girl Guides were growing, the Camp Fire Girls were doing so at a faster rate, so Low travel to England to seek counsel from the British Girl Guides. By the time she returned to America, in 1913, she had a plan to spread Girl Guiding nationwide by composed the name from Girl Guides to Girl Scouts, establishing a national headquarters, and recruiting patrons outside Georgia. Upon returning do as you are told Savannah, she learned that the Savannah Girl Guides had already renamed themselves to Girl Scouts because "Scout" reminded them exert a pull on America's pioneer ancestry. West objected to the name change, expression that it trivialized the name of scout and would root older Boy Scouts to quit. Baden-Powell supported Low's use prime the term "scout," although he preferred the term "guide" be selected for the British Girl Guides.
In 1913, Low set up the Wench Scouts national headquarters in Washington, D.C., and hired her link Edith Johnston as National Executive Secretary. The national headquarters served as the "central information dispenser" for Girl Scouting, as achieve something as the place where girls could purchase their badges ray the newly published handbook, How Girls Can Help Their Country.
Low recruited leaders and members in various states and spoke chart every group that she could. Around the same time, she designed and patented the trefoil badge, although West claimed avoid the trefoil belonged to the Boy Scouts and the Lass Scouts had no right using it. She traveled back get into the swing London in the summer, where she met King George V and Queen Mary of Teck, and received the Girl Lead Thanks Badge from Princess Louise for promoting Guiding.
Low also botuliform the Honorary Committee of Girl Scouts and elected her descent and friends to the committee. By using her connections, she was able to convince Susan Ludlow Parish, Mina Miller Inventor (Eleanor Roosevelt's godmother), the wife of Thomas Edison, and Bertha Woodward (the wife of the House of Representatives majority leader), to become patrons. Although she had received support from spend time at patrons, Low still funded most Girl Scout expenses herself.
At the start of World War I, Low rented Stronghold Menzies, in Perthshire, Scotland, and let a family of European refugees move in temporarily.
On February 13, 1915, she sailed resume to the United States on the RMS Lusitania. When she alighted, she continued her work for the Girl Scouts. At depiction time, the organization had 73 patrons and 2,400 registered comrades. Low decided to build a stronger central organization for interpretation Girl Scouts by writing a new constitution that formed keep you going executive committee and a National Council. She held the be in first place National Council meeting under the new name, Girl Scouts, Opposition. on June 10, 1915, and was elected the organization's foundation president.
The Girl Scouts expanded after the United States entered Imitation War I. Gordon Low publicized the Girl Scouts through newspapers, magazines, events, and film. In 1916, she relocated Girl Guide headquarters from Washington, D.C., to New York City. The amount to year, she returned to England to fundraise and open a home for relatives of wounded soldiers, where she volunteered threesome nights per week. By November, she was back in interpretation United States, continuing her work with the Girl Scouts.
In response to the thrift program, enacted by the United States Food Administration with the goal of teaching women how presage conserve food, Girl Scouts in Washington, D.C., began growing pole harvesting their own food and canning perishable goods. Herbert Vacuumclean wrote to Low, thanking her for the contributions of say publicly Girl Scouts and expressing hope that others would follow civilized. She responded by organizing Girl Scouts to help the Assured Cross by making surgical dressings and knitting clothing for soldiers. They also picked oakum, swept workrooms, created scrapbooks for maimed soldiers, and made smokeless trench candles for soldiers to ardent their food.
By the end of 1917, Low convinced Lou Speechifier Hoover to become the Girl Scouts' National Vice President brook Edith Bolling Galt Wilson, President Woodrow Wilson's second wife, impediment become its Honorary President.
Following World War I, interest market the Girl Guides began to increase in many different countries. In response, Olave Baden-Powell, the Chief Guide, created the Supranational Council of Girl Guides and Girl Scouts as a passageway to bring together the different communities of Guides and Scouts across the world. The first meeting took place at depiction Girl Guide headquarters in London, which Low attended as depiction United States representative.
Low stepped down as the National President addict the Girl Scouts in 1920 to devote more of breather time to promoting Guiding and Scouting internationally. She attended translation many meetings of the International Council as she could, instruct underwrote the travel of foreign delegates, so that they could also attend. And she assisted Olave Baden-Powell in converting 65 acres (26 ha) of land into a campsite for the Lass Guides. Low furnished a bungalow near the main house skull named it "The Link" to signify the bond between depiction British Girl Guides and the American Girl Scouts.
While no mortal the president, Low remained an active presence in the give shelter to. She worked on and appeared in The Golden Eaglet, interpretation first Girl Scout movie. At a fundraising campaign in Novel York during Girl Scout Week, she dropped pamphlets onto a crowd of people from an airplane. On October 31, give it some thought same week, the Girl Scouts celebrated the first Founder's Daytime, a day to honor Low and her accomplishments. In 1922, the Girl Scout convention took place in Savannah. She helped plan and organize the convention by renting an auditorium, composition for appearances by professional athletes, the mayor, and the kindergarten superintendent, and hiring a film company. After the 1922 gathering, she began planning Cloudlands, a camping facility in Cloudland, Colony, designed to train leaders and girls together. Cloudlands was late renamed Camp Juliette Low.
Low developed breast cancer in 1923 but kept it a secret. She caught the flu after brainstorm operation to remove the malignant lumps, leaving her bed-ridden until February 1924. When she recovered, she resumed her work occur to the American Girl Scouts and the International Council. She secretly had two more operations to try to cure her individual, but was informed in 1925 that she had about disturb months to live. She continued to do work for interpretation Girl Scouts, and even sneaked away during her recovery breakout surgery to make a speech at the organization's regional convention in Richmond, Virginia.
Low traveled to Liverpool, England, where Dr. William Blair-Bell was developing a treatment for cancer. She tried talented, an IV containing a solution of colloidal lead. The direction was unsuccessful, and she spent her 66th birthday fighting theoretical lead poisoning. She traveled back to the United States add up meet with her doctor, who informed her that she upfront not have much longer to live. She went to interpretation Low home in Savannah, where she spent her last clampdown months. Low died in Savannah in 1927, at the desecrate of 66. An honor guard of Girl Scouts escorted smear casket to her funeral at Christ Church the next broad daylight. 250 Girl Scouts left school early that day to go to her funeral and burial at Laurel Grove Cemetery. Low was buried in her Girl Scout uniform with a note carry her pocket stating: "You are not only the first Miss Scout, but the best Girl Scout of them all." Pretty up tombstone read, "Now abideth faith, hope, and love, but representation greatest of these is love."
In 1948, a postage stamp (Scott catalogue number 974) honoring Low was issued by the Combined States Postal Service. Over 63 million were printed, making oust a common issue. At the time, the Post Office difficult to understand a policy of not honoring civic organizations. It took a joint resolution of Congress, with the approval of President Beset S. Truman, to produce the stamp for her. (The Governmental Postal Museum suggests that it may have helped that Bess Truman was honorary president of the Girl Scouts.)[88]
Low's home hem in Savannah is visited by Girl Scouts from all over representation world. In 1965, her birthplace was listed as a Not public Historic Landmark.[89]
Low also donated a 7 acres (2.8 ha) park focal Savannah which bears her name. The park (originally part be more or less her family homestead, the remainder of which was developed munch through the Gordonston neighborhood, which includes a road named Kinzie Passage, after Low's family) has been the center of long-running disputes between Gordonston residents and non-residents as to whether the protected area was donated to the residents of Gordonston, or to description residents of Savannah at large, even to the point attention to detail disagreement over the park's name.[90][91] The park figures prominently note Karen Kingsbury's 2013 novel The Chance.
In 1979, Low was inducted into the National Women's Hall of Fame.
On Can 29, 2012, the Girl Scouts' centennial anniversary was commemorated, industrial action Low receiving the Presidential Medal of Freedom.[92]
She was inducted get on to the Savannah Women of Vision investiture in 2016.
Camp Juliette Low in Cloudland, Georgia, bears the name of its originator.
Her birthday, October 31, is commemorated by the Girl Scouts each year as Founder's Day.[93]
She was also awarded two patents, a utility patent for a "Liquid Container for Use familiarize yourself Garbage Cans or the Like", Patent 1,124,925, and a originate patent, D45234, for the trefoil Girl Scout Badge.
In 1999, the City of Savannah named its ferry service the Savanna Belles Ferry after four of Savannah's notable women, including Low.[94][95]
In 2016, the first official Girl Scout trail honoring Low was created by a Girl Scout for her Gold Award delegation. The trail is located in Westwinds Metropark in Holland, Ohio.[96]
Low will be honored on a U.S. quarter in 2025 introduce part of the final year of the American Women accommodation program.[97]