Scouting and Civilization: The Identity Building Process for the Boy Scouts of America, 1910-1913
Loading...
Date
2016-06
Authors
Steenkolk, Charles
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
University of Oregon
Abstract
The Boy Scouts of America is one of the most popular, larges~ and longest
running youth organizations in the United States. Created in 1910, the organization
competed with other youth organizations that started around the same time. This article
looks at the incorporating documents, the letters and correspondence, and the minutes of
the first national meetings, in order to identify and track the initial conc~ptualizations of
the BSA as it asserted itself in the American society. The documents span from 1910 to
1913, the first three years of the BSA. The documents show that the future of the
organization was not clear at the time, and that there were significant issues, like
competing Scouting groups, presented to the organization as it formed. The documents
also show that the BSA was a composition of the individual people that founded it, and
the consensus on a course of action was not present at first. The individual decisions of
the leaders of the organization led to a more clear definition of the organization's niche
in society, its identity as a youth organization and as the group to oversee the Scouting
movement in the United States.
Description
47 pages. A thesis presented to the Department of History and the Clark Honors College of the University of Oregon in partial fulfillment of the requirements for degree of Bachelor of Arts, Spring 2016.
Keywords
U.S. History, Boy Scouts of America, Scouting, Manliness, Identity, Theodore Roosevelt, Manhood