Cyclist Merit Badge-Girl Scouts 1920

[Lifesgreat]

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.

[mimitabby]

wow! I finally qualify for a merit badge!

[RoadRaven]

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

[Lifesgreat]

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.

[Tuckervill]

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

[mimitabby]

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

[Lifesgreat]

.

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

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.

[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!!

[bmccasland]

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!!

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.

[Bad JuJu]

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.

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.

[mimitabby]

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.

[Mr. Bloom]

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

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

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...

relative of a g@y person could not participate.

Is this true?

[Tuckervill]

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

[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?

[mimitabby]

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!