Cyclist Merit Badge-Girl Scouts 1920

Barnes and Noble reprinted the orginal 1920 Girl Scout Handbook and I was reading about the merit badges. Here is what a girl needed to do in order to earn the Cyclist merit badge:

"1. Own a bicycle, and care for it, cleaning, oiling and making minor repairs, readjusting chain, bars and seat.
2. Be able to mend a tire.
3. Demonstrate the use of a road map.
4. Demonstrate leading another bicycle while riding.
5. Know the laws of the road right of way, lighting and so forth.
6. Make satisfactory report to Captain of a bicycle Scouting expedition as to the condition of a road with camping site for an over-night hike.
7. Pledge the bicycle to the government in time of need."

From Scouting for Girls, The Original 1920 Girl Scout Handbook
Barnes and Noble, 2005 Page 507 (I know that isn't the official way to cite something, sorry!)


#6 Sounds like fun: a bicycle Scouting expedition
#7 While this requirement would give me angst now, it wouldn't have if I lived in 1920. :o

wow! I finally qualify for a merit badge!

Really interesting - how did you come to be reading about merit badges then?
I have never been and scout or a brownie or anything like that - but this makes very interesting reading
:D

Being the mother of (only) girls, we would have a fun time with the book. With money burning on a gift card, I bought it at Barnes and Noble last month. It is a fun read. I wouldn't follow some of its first aid advice, though.

I have old Boy Scouts and Campfire Girls manuals (real ones, not reprints). They're great for ideas for crafts and skills we wouldn't necessarily run across today.

I also have the Handy Book for Boys and (I think it's called) The Dangerous Book for Boys. The Handy Book was written by one of the guys who founded Boy Scouts. It shows how to make fish hooks and build fires and make silhouette puppet shows! It has a whole section on how to go out in the woods and spend the night by yourself, with nothing but a knife, I think. My son loves both of those books.

When I was in the National Guard, I had Guard plates on my car, and that meant my car could be commandeered by the gov't. if it came to it. It's appalling now, but back in the 40s, we would have thought nothing of it, you know?

Karen

i was enjoying the vision of soldiers commandering children's bicycles "in time of need"
kind of funny from a 21st century perspective.

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Originally Posted by Tuckervill

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I also have the Handy Book for Boys and (I think it's called) The Dangerous Book for Boys. The Handy Book was written by one of the guys who founded Boy Scouts. It shows how to make fish hooks and build fires and make silhouette puppet shows! It has a whole section on how to go out in the woods and spend the night by yourself, with nothing but a knife, I think. My son loves both of those books.


Karen

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Santa is bringing The Daring Book for Girls to my girls next Monday night! It is the "female" counterpart to the The Dangerous Book for Boys.

It's interesting that you really don't have to ride the bike much to get the badge!!!

#4 and #6 sound like you need to be on the bike to do them, but you could do them both on the same ride, same day, and do them on a 10 foot slab of pavement on the way to a campsite.

Interesting!!

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Originally Posted by Flybye

It's interesting that you really don't have to ride the bike much to get the badge!!!

#4 and #6 sound like you need to be on the bike to do them, but you could do them both on the same ride, same day, and do them on a 10 foot slab of pavement on the way to a campsite.

Interesting!!

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It could be the difference between a Junior Scout or a Cadette Scout badge. Considering the era, I wouldn't even begin to venture a guess.

Now I'm curious. Is there a present day equivalent badge and what are the requirements?

Anybody know??? :confused:

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Originally Posted by SouthernBelle

Now I'm curious. Is there a present day equivalent badge and what are the requirements?

Anybody know??? :confused:

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Well a quick 'net search turns up a "Rolling Along" interest project award, that has pictures of bicycles on the badge! The requirements aren't available online though. Anybody have a book?

Here is what the Boy Scouts have to do to earn their badge. I can't help out with the Girl Scouts because my Dear Dear Daughter abandoned them after one year because all they did was crafts :eek: and being a tomboy, she was HUGELY disappointed.

Merit badge requirements

1. Show that you know first aid for injuries or illnesses that could occur while cycling, including hypothermia, heat reactions, frostbite, dehydration, insect stings, tick bites, snakebites, blisters, and hyperventilation.
2. Clean and adjust a bicycle. Prepare it for inspection using a bicycle safety checklist. Be sure the bicycle meets local laws.
3. Show your bicycle to your counselor for inspection. Point out the adjustments or repairs you have made. Do the following:

a. Show all points that need oiling regularly.
b. Show points that should be checked regularly to make sure the bicycle is safe to ride.
c. Show how to adjust brakes, seat level and height, and steering tube.

4. Describe how to brake safely with foot brakes and with hand brakes.
5. Show how to repair a flat. Use an old bicycle tire.
6. Take a road test with your counselor and demonstrate the following:

a. Properly mount, pedal, and brake including emergency stops.
b. On an urban street with light traffic, properly execute a left turn from the center of the street; also demonstrate an alternate left turn technique used during periods of heavy traffic.
c. Properly execute a right turn.
d. Demonstrate appropriate actions at a right-turn-only lane when you are continuing straight.
e. Show proper curbside and road-edge riding. Show how to safely ride along a row of parked cars.
f. Cross railroad tracks properly.

7. Describe your state’s traffic laws for bicycles. Compare them with motor-vehicle laws. Know the bicycle-safety guidelines.
8. Avoiding main highways, take two rides of 10 miles each, two rides of 15 miles each, and two rides of 25 miles each. You must make a report of the rides taken. List dates, routes traveled, and interesting things seen.*
9. After fulfilling requirement 8, lay out on a road map a 50-mile trip. Stay away from main highways. Using your map, make this ride in eight hours.

* The bicycle must have all required safety features. It must be registered as required by your local traffic laws.

Source: 2007 Boy Scout Requirements (33215)
[edit] Notes

To be fair, we need to compare the 1920 boyscouts bicycling badge requirement (They probably have to construct a bike!)

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Originally Posted by Flybye

Here is what the Boy Scouts have to do to earn their badge.

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I have a friend who helped some boy scouts get their badges for cycling. The 50-mile ride was a huge challenge for most of them. Walmart bikes, sneakers, baggy shorts...but they made it and were all very, very proud. It took over 6 hours.

Girl Scouts should have a bike badge similar to the Boy Scouts. I was never into the scout thing, but for those who are, biking would be a great part of the experience. I'd even volunteer to help out!

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Originally Posted by Lifesgreat

Santa is bringing The Daring Book for Girls to my girls next Monday night! It is the "female" counterpart to the The Dangerous Book for Boys.

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I sent my niece The Daring Book for Girls for Christmas. I didn't see anything in it specifically about cycling, but it has a nice mix of crafts, sports, and intellectual pursuits, and it seemed like a book I'd have loved to have when I was a girl.

here we go: I own a 1910 boyscout handbook:
Cycling

To obtain a merit badge for cycling a Scout must:
1. Ride a bicycle 50 miles in 10 hours
2. Repair a puncture
3. Take apart and clean a bicycle, and put it together again properly
4. Demonstrate how to make reports, if sent out scouting on a road.
5. read a map; and report correctly verbal messages.

SKnot's dad was a scout leader until the scouts decided any g@y person or relative of a g@y person could not participate. Then he (and the other 3 leaders of SKnot's pack) decided that wasn't the organization they wanted to be in.

Never did get into any independent scout-ish activities, but I did try to teach SKnot how to care for his bikes.

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Originally Posted by Lifesgreat

1920 Girl Scout Handbook:
3. Demonstrate the use of a road map.

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Originally Posted by mimitabby

1910 boyscout handbook:
5. read a map; and report correctly verbal messages.

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At first, I thought this was hilarious...and that there was some embedded male humor like..."that was the last time they actually ever used the map"...or "a man doesn't need to ask for directions, 'cause if it's on a road, he'll eventually find it"

But then, I bet that back then, 80% of American's never left their home county...and if they did, the train did the navigating for them...

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Originally Posted by KnottedYet

relative of a g@y person could not participate.

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Is this true?

I got pretty disgusted with Boy Scouts when the whole thing about the Eagle Scout who didn't believe in God went on. (They kicked him out.)

It was a big topic in our church at the time, and then there were the witch-hunts about gay leaders--but that was related to the perception that pedophiles are gay. There WERE scout leaders who abused boys, and a few high profile cases back in the late '90s (if I recall). Since many (most?) Boy Scout troops are sponsored by churches, the "gay" issue was blown way out of proportion out of willful ignorance--in my opinion. And that took away from the real problem, boys were being abused by deviant pedophiles and it didn't matter what their orientation was. At some point scouts stopped being an option for my boys because of these issues, especially the belief in God requirement.

Lots of alternative groups were started because of that, like Spiral Scouts. Campfire Kids had a resurgence. (I was a Campfire leader.) It was a "big deal"--at least to the people who were being marginalized.

eta: Maybe you'll remember this Mr. Silver--In Memphis at the time there were billboards put up by Boy Scouts that to me were offensive. I wish I could remember the exact terms they used, but it was something to the effect of "Boy Scouts--the only scouts with real values." Maybe it was a bigger deal in Memphis than elsewhere...

Karen

From a historical perspective, this thread is interesting; from a currernt social perspective I find this thread disturbing. Within the US, scouting segregates by gender and discriminates (to the point of exclusion) by religion and sexual orientation.

I did a google search and discovered that there is apparently no equivalent cycling merit badge for girl scouts today. There was greater parity at the turn of the last century than today?

Not to pose a hundred rhetorical questions, but this just blows me away. Why don't we raise kids (generic term)? Why do we have "boy scouts" and "girl scouts"? Why are there two "Daring Book for..." books, one for each gender? We've come so far, yet have we?

well, Thorn, the fact is, we ARE different.
My sons didn't really like playing with girls, and they didn't play LIKE girls either. Growing up with a sister only (my half brother is 8 years older than me) I was shocked, stunned, amazed and sometimes disgusted and disappointed over the years at how different my 2 sons were to my sister and I. When my sons were born, I was going to raise them "non-sexist". I bought them dolls
(who ended up on the floor face down, naked underneath everything else) and encouraged them
to not be warriors.. But as little boys they WERE. The most stunning difference i saw was when
my 4 year old son and a little girl daughter of a friend both spontaneously started dancing, She instinctively moved in a beautiful sinuous pattern, while he... well, he couldn't do it, but his
movements were just as free and happy as hers. We all shook our heads at the difference.

The only thing I could get them to do that I also enjoyed as a little kid was to go "hiking"
They were forever making weapons out of sticks. They were much noisier and a lot more active. Coloring books just didn't cut it for them. THey did just as much play acting as we did, but none of it was "house" or "school".
My sister and I were both "tomboys" but that still did not compare to the yardape mentality that my sons had.
All my mother had to do was bring home colored paper and tape and I would be happy all day cutting stuff out.
my sons? I made them both shields out of heavy cardboard
with our name's coat of arms on it. They made their own swords...

The fact is, girls in classes without boys tend to do better than girls in co ed situations. Like it or not, we're different. Ask any little girl who she'd rather be friends with!

I second that Mimitabby - I have experienced the same with my son and my daughters. I now just love and embrace that fact that they are different. There are sociological study after sociological study out there about the differences in men and women, boys and girls.

I think one of the best examples that I can give personally relates to bike riding. I had been riding seriously all summer - about 70 miles a week some weeks. I had a new bike, all carbon frame, had been watching my cadence, keeping it up in the 80-90 range and had been pleased with a 19ish mph speed average.

Enter husband, who is physically active on an intermittent basis. He wanted to go on a ride with me so he slapped some flat pedals on my old bike (not a carbon frame bike), slipped on some sneakers and a helmet (and of course his clothes) and off we went. It was his second time on this bike and our first time riding together on bikes other that mountain bikes. He kicked my _utt. He was faster, stronger, and had to put out less effort on the ride. The only difference was that I had more stamina when we got into the ride about 15 miles because I was conditioned.

I love the fact that we are different.

What I don't love is when we sale girls and women short on things without giving them a try at different things or giving them a push here and there to try something new. My dad was great in respect to this. He had me changing brake pads, oil, radiators, and alternator belts on my cars in high school. I once stood in the bed of a truck on the edge in a field and using the back side of an axe (we didn't have a sledgehammer) and hammered in a whole line of field fence posts for a pasture. Must have put in 50-60 posts in a week.

Same for boys - don't sale them short either. They can learn to do things that are typical for females.

The more diverse we are with skills, the better off we all are.

My $.02

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Originally Posted by Tuckervill

Lots of alternative groups were started because of that, like Spiral Scouts. Campfire Kids had a resurgence. (I was a Campfire leader.) It was a "big deal"--at least to the people who were being marginalized.

eta: Maybe you'll remember this Mr. Silver--In Memphis at the time there were billboards put up by Boy Scouts that to me were offensive. I wish I could remember the exact terms they used, but it was something to the effect of "Boy Scouts--the only scouts with real values." Maybe it was a bigger deal in Memphis than elsewhere...

Karen

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This seems like a good group.

www.scoutingforall.org

I'm not saying we're not different. We all are--if we weren't, the world would be boring. But, I have a problem with "nature vs. nuture". Yes, we are born different, but when we start pushing kids down "this is the girl's path" and "this is the boy's" path so early, we don't let them find out their nature....we override it with nurture.

We are different. But by tracking we smooth out those differences. That, to me, is sad.

There are girls that want to run, climb, and wreak havok; there are boys who want to sit indoors and read and learn to cook. But, social tracking makes those kids feel out of place. They shouldn't feel out of place--they should be allowed to embrace their uniqueness.

Really, I didn't mean to hijack the thread.

It's okay, Thorn, it's fun to talk about this stuff. You're right! there are girls who wreak havoc, and boys who like to sit and read.
I agree, they should be encouraged to be WHO they are (my kids taught me that they were going to be who they were no matter WHAT I did or said) and given opportunities to go in any direction that really mattered to them..

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Originally Posted by Trek420

This seems like a good group.

www.scoutingforall.org

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Very interesting...and the TE parallel...the founder is on Team Slipstream?

http://www.stevencozza.com/data/home.html

http://www.scoutingforall.org/data/a...ic/061402.html

My son got his eagle about 4 years ago at 18. Here's our family's and his troops take on the whole politcal scenario. As for our family, we laid out for our son what some of the issues are/were for scouting, whether its SOME troops (remember not all) pushing the religion thing or the no gays thing, and the issue with adult inappropriateness surfacing in some groups. We then let him decide whether he wanted to continue to participate, based on knowing his parent's political stance, and the nature of his troop. I think this was a better way to go, to let him choose, than to say YOU can't do this because we don't agree with parts of it. It also opens the door for a lot of intelligent discussion.

His troop is/was pretty unusual in that it was not focused on what the national council puts out about scouting. It focused on the original tenets of scouting as laid out by Lord Baden Powell, "never do for a boy what he can do for himself." There were no parent committees to plan things, it was all done by the boys, with the older boys leading the younger ones. The adults were there mainly to observe, provide suggestions only if needed, and drive the cars. There were a few select adult male leaders offering stern but caring background guidance. The older boys teach the younger boys leadership skilss, and hold each other accountable for mistakes. Needless to say, they spent a lot of time doing boy-like things, and not worrying about politics, policy and who might be sleeping with who.

This is not the norm these days, when you have helicopter parents planning and supervising the activities, making decisions for the kids and the troop and not giving the kids opportunities to learn from and be accountable for mistakes. In addition, mothers were discouraged from participating as this troop views teen years as a time for boys to separate from their mothers (I agree with this) and to let older boys and men teach boys how to become mature young men.

I think there's a lot of value in scouting, but it's really important to find the right troop. There are some really good ones out there, but there are also troops that are venues for parent's agendas, or a particular churches agenda, that one really needs to be careful of. There are also troops out there that instead of breaking off to a separate organization, fight the national idiocy on a local level, whether it is having pagan troop leaders, or being welcoming of sexual orientation. In a way it's sort of thumbing the nose at national policy, and saying "we are here for the good of the kids".

sorry for the novel, I'm passionate about this.

I.

I was much more of a "boy" as a kid than SKnot is. I've tried for years to get him to do active adventurous stuff. No can do.

Doesn't seem to matter how we want or expect our kids to develop, they will do their own thing.

Irulan, that scout troop sounds wonderful!

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Originally Posted by KnottedYet

Doesn't seem to matter how we want or expect our kids to develop, they will do their own thing.

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boy isn't that the truth! raising kids is like herding cats...
and i know about herding cats from PERSONAL experience.

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Originally Posted by Thorn

I did a google search and discovered that there is apparently no equivalent cycling merit badge for girl scouts today.

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Are you sure that that "Rolling Along" badge isn't for cycling??? It has pictures of bicycles, after all (and no other wheeled vehicles).

Wow, Girl Scouts has changed a lot since I was a kid. well yeah that was a loong time ago

Moms/Aunts, is it something your girls do anymore?

The only time I see Girl Scouts nowadays is when I fall prey to the insiduous lure of cookies and mixed nuts. :cool:

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Originally Posted by OakLeaf

Are you sure that that "Rolling Along" badge isn't for cycling??? It has pictures of bicycles, after all (and no other wheeled vehicles).

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Since I couldn't find the exact requirements, I was basing things on the Google on-line book "Bicycling with Children: A Complete How-To Guide". It has

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The GSA does not have a badge or patch specifically for bicycling.

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It then lists the badges that it can be made part of, including "Rolling Along"

This thread has reminded me of the Dar Williams song "When I Was a Boy" (think that's the title). I too have observed what seem like gender differences in very young children, but as a kid, I was much more boyish than some of the neighbor boys, and some of them were more girlish than I. But even that statement assumes a certain pre-existing "boyishness" and "girlishness" that I don't know are completely justified. I don't have a clue about this, really--but I do like the song. :)

I won't forget when Peter Pan
Came to my house took my hand
I said I was a boy
I'm glad he didn't check

I learned to fly, I learned to fight
I lived a whole life in one night
We saved each other's lives out on the pirate deck

And I remember that night when
I'm leaving a late night with some friends
And I hear somebody tell me its not safe, someone should help me
I need to find a nice man to walk me home.

When I was a boy, I scared the pants off of my mom,
Climbed what I could climb upon
And I don't know how I survived,
I guess I knew the tricks that all boys knew.
And you can walk me home, but I was a boy, too.

Campfire USA and Spiral Scouts do not separate by gender. Older ages of Boy Scouts include girls. I don't know anything about Girl Scouts.

Karen

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Originally Posted by Thorn

From a historical perspective, this thread is interesting; from a currernt social perspective I find this thread disturbing. Within the US, scouting segregates by gender and discriminates (to the point of exclusion) by religion and sexual orientation.

I did a google search and discovered that there is apparently no equivalent cycling merit badge for girl scouts today. There was greater parity at the turn of the last century than today?

Not to pose a hundred rhetorical questions, but this just blows me away. Why don't we raise kids (generic term)? Why do we have "boy scouts" and "girl scouts"? Why are there two "Daring Book for..." books, one for each gender? We've come so far, yet have we?

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Originally Posted by mimitabby

boy isn't that the truth! raising kids is like herding cats...
and i know about herding cats from PERSONAL experience.

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They grow up in spite of us!

Hey, I've been teaching my 14 yo son how to crochet his last week!

Karen

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Originally Posted by Thorn

Since I couldn't find the exact requirements, I was basing things on the Google on-line book "Bicycling with Children: A Complete How-To Guide". It has

It then lists the badges that it can be made part of, including "Rolling Along"

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In defense of the people who write these things, there is a tendency to make the activities required for a badge/patch/bead as wide-open and welcoming so as to appeal to as many interests as possible. If they were too narrow, so many kids would just balk. Making the categories broad allows more custom tailored things fit inside. This is good for all the kids.

Karen