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Sir Robert Baden-Powell was an officer in the British Army. It was during his service in India and later in Africa that he observed the needs of young men he trained, to find ways of living comfortably in the out-of-doors and to develop their skills in observation and tracking.
When he returned to his home in England, he tested a scheem he called "Scouting" with a small group of boys in a camp on Brownsea Island on the south coast of England.
From this start, the idea caught on like wildfire and soon there were groups organized all over England. By 1909, a nationwide rally was held at the Crystal Palace in London. Eleven thousand boys attended and among these, B-P suddenly noticed a few girls in wide-brimmed hats and khaki skirts. Although girls had not been invited, they called themselves Girl Scouts.
Realizing the girls could not be overlooked, B-P turned to his sister for help in organizning a program more suited for girls. He named them Girl Guides. The first Girl Guide Company or troop, registered in England on February 6, 1910, was known as "Miss Baden-Powell's Own". Agnes Baden-Powell became the first president of the Girl Guide movement, which numbered 8,000 Guides by the end of that year.
Abut this time, an American woman living in England met Baden-Powell at a social function and became quite interested in his work. She was eager to help and started a Guide Company in rural Scotland, and others in London later on. This was our own Juliette Low, of course. She helped with teh beginnings of Guiding in England and when she was about to return to her home in Savannah, Georgia, shse wrote to her niece that she was bringing something "for the girls of the United Stated and for the whole world".
Twenty-four girls were invited to have tea with Mrs. Low when she arrived home, and the first troop was fromed at a meeting on March 12, 1912. That was the beginning of Girl Scouting in the United States.
As Juliette Low carried teh idea of the program here from England, so others, in more distant countries, translated Baden-Powell's Handbook for Boys into their own languages and soon the program ws acctive in many parts of the world.
In the meantime, back in London, Baden-Powell married a young woman by the name of Olave Soames, who as his wife, took on the responsibility for the Girl Guide program. She will reappear in our story showing her great and continuing leadership in our movement.
In July 1920, the first international conference of Girl Guides and Girl Scouts was held in Oxford, England. Ninetten countries were represented. International conferences were held every two years after that until 1938.
In 1926, at the invitation of Juliette Low, the international conference was held at Camp Edith Macy in New York and the Chief Scout and Lady Baden-Powell attended. Twenty-nine countries were rpresented this time. It as at this gathering that the shared birthday of both Lord and Lady Baden-Powell, February 22, was set aside as Thinking Day to be recognized annually.
It was at this same conference that the idea of World Association as we know it was first proposed. This was Juliette Low's dream. This international conference at Macy was the culmination of her many hopes and plans for her Girl Scouts. She passed away on January 17, 1927, in Savannah, Georgia after an extended illness.
The Juliette Low World Friendship Fund was established that same year by the National Council, im memory of Mrs. Low and in recognition of her great vision of World Guiding and Scouting. She felt strongly that if girls could make friends across national borders, they would contribute greately to understanding and world peace.
In 1928, the World Association of Girl Guides and Girl Scouts (WAGGGS) was formed and a constitution drawn up at the international conference in Hungary. Twenty-nine founder countries were:
Australia Hungary New Zealand Belgium Iceland Norway Canada India Poland China Japan South Africa Czechoslovakia Latvia Suomi-Finland Denmark Liberia Sweden Egypt Lithuania Switzerland Estonia Luxembourg United States of America France Netherlands Yugoslavia Great Britain
The total membership in the USA was 190,309 at that time. The total world membership was 886,627.
The reaction was so positive to this worldwide movement that, at the world conference in England in 1930, Mrs. James J. Storrow of Boston, chairman of the World Committee at that time, announced her gift to the World Association. She gave a place where girls could meet together. After much research, a lovely site was selected high in the Alps of Switzerland. This became Our Chalet.
As Our Chalet was being built, the Juliette Low World Friendship Fund began to send girls to visit Guides in other countries and to bring Guides from other countries to the United States. There were many exchanges between countries.
At the world conference held in Norway, a World Flag, designed by Miss Kari Aas of Norway, was adopted. Lady Baden-Powell was made World Chief Guide.
At the next world conference, held in Poland in 1932, the Thinking Day Fund was established to promote Girl Guiding/Girl Scouting throughout the world. GSUSA contributes toward this through our Juliette Low World Friendship Fund.
The first Juliette Low Session was held at the opening of Our Chalet in 1932. Girls from eight countries attended. Juliette Low Sessions became an annual event through 1939, when the girls in the eighth Juliette Low Session left for home just before the outbreak of hostilities in Europe. During World War II, Guiding in the occupied countries was forced underground and many acts of heroism were performed by Guides.
In 1941, Lord Baden-Powell died at his home in Nyeri, Kenya, where his grave can be visited today. The site is marked with the trail sign for "end of the trail".
The war ended and in 1946, the eleventh world conference took place in Evian, France. Unfortunately, several member countries no longer participated, but others reported a great increase in membership and six new member countries were welcomed. Juliette Low Sessions resumed at Our Chalet.
The World Association membership pin, which we all wear, was adopted by the twelfth world conference held in Cooperstown, New York.
In 1957, in recognition of the hundredth anniversary of the birth of the Founder, Lord Baden-Powell, the World Association held four World Centenary Camps: in Canada, the Philippines, Switzerland and the United Kingdom. Girls came from all parts of the world to attend these four camps.
Another event that year was the opening of Our Cabaņa in Cuernavaca, Mexico, which our Juliette Low World Friendship Fund helped to build.
In 1963, Olave House, formerly known as The Ark, a building which had served as a Girl Guide/Girl Scout hostel in London since May 1939, was rechristened with the name of the World Chief Guide, Olave, Lady Baden-Powell. Girl Guides and Girl Scouts all over the world helped to redecorate and furnish the various rooms of Olave House.
The World Association held a new kind of event in 1964, in cooperation with UNESCO: the East-West Conference for Mutal Appreciation of Cultural Values. It took place in New Delhi, India, and for the first time, there was a focus on the Asian area of the world and our Girl Guide/Girl Scout friends in those countries.
Two years later, GSUSA held a follow-up conference for Senior Scouts and Rangers in Hawaii. It was called the East-West Conference and brought girls together from twelve Pacific area countries. Some of the girls who had attended the 1964 conference in India as Scouts, came as young adult staff members.
Our fourth World Center opened the same year in Poona, India. It was Sangam, a Indian word meaning a place of meeting, a coming together.
Each of the four centers has its own pin, which you can wear after you visit there. Any member of our movement may visit the Centers, but there is a minimum age of fourteen years for overnight stays.
The next years brought considerable progress to the World Association:
What a remarkable force - to have so many girls in so many different cultures following teh same program of self-learning and service to others in their communities, while sharing the same basic, three-part Promise and Law.
This document may be ordered from the San Francisco Bay Girl Scout Council by asking for form #485.
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