Girl Scout Cookies Part 1: History

In many areas of the United States, it is Girl Scout Cookie Season! This time of year is a busy one for Girl Scouts and their volunteers alike. This makes for a great time to reflect on the history of Girl Scout cookies and how they have changed over the years. This is Part 1 in a series all about various aspects of Girl Scout Cookies.

Selling cookies to raise funds for troop activities and community service projects started in 1917 with the first recorded cookie sale in Oklahoma. In the 1920s and 1930s, girls primarily made the cookies themselves at home to sell. These were just simple sugar cookies, and the first attempt at standardizing these cookies was in 1922 in Chicago when a local director gave the council a cookie recipe to bake and sell. In 1926, the Century Biscuit Company baked cookies for girls in Indiana to sell. By the late 1930s, girls could either make cookies at home or sell cookies produced by a licensed baker.

In the 1940s cookies were sold every year until World War II, when the government rationed sugar, butter and flour (pretty much everything you need to make cookies). Councils were advised to discontinue cookie sales and come up with other creative ways to raise funds. However after the war, cookies were once again sold nation-wide. In the 1950s cookies began to really have different standardized varieties including shortbread, sandwich cookies (in chocolate and vanilla) and chocolate mint cookies. During this time, girls began to sell door-to-door and in front of retail locations like we see today.

Sales really increased during the 1960s with young baby boomers joining the Girl Scouts and selling cookies. The best sellers during this time were chocolate mint, shortbread, and peanut butter sandwich cookies. Cookies were streamlined in the 1970s by decreasing the number of licensed bakers to 4 to make the cookies more uniform. This likely increased national branding and made them more iconic. However, there was (and still is) some autonomy between bakers, with each baker producing some optional cookies as well. This trend followed into the decades to come and into today.

Today Girl Scout cookies are baked by 2 different bakers, and each council chooses which baker they purchase cookies from. There are a large variety of cookies to choose from, and today in 2015 there are 3 new varieties being launched which include gluten-free cookies.

Some cookies come and some cookies go, but the purpose of selling cookies has always been the same. To fund the activities and service projects of the Girl Scouts in order to give back to the community and to make the world a better place.

Most of the historical information in this post is from the Girl Scout Collector's Guide (2nd. Ed. 2005) by Mary Degenhardt and Judith Kirsch, pgs. 453-7. I left out a lot of information as I want to encourage you to pick up a copy and read it for yourself. It has a lot of awesome historical pictures of Girl Scouts selling cookies and has a lot more detailed information. I've only skimmed the surface here!


Image Attribution:
"Graves Erskine and Girl Scout, circa 1945" by USMC Archives - Flickr: Graves Erskine and Girl Scout, circa 1945. Licensed under CC BY 2.0 via Wikimedia Commons http://commons.wikimedia.org /wiki/File:Graves_Erskine_and_Girl_Scout,_circa_1945.jpg #mediaviewer/File:Graves_Erskine_and_Girl_Scout,_circa_1945.jpg

A Brief Guide on Collecting Vintage Girl Scout Memorabilia

Something that not a lot of my friends know about me is that I have a small collection of Girl Scout memorabilia. I own a vintage uniform (1949-1951), some pre-1960s scout handbooks and a flashlight. Most of these items have been gifts to me over the years from those close to me who know how much I love Girl Scouts. Since I do love Girl Scout memorabilia, I thought I would put together this short general guide on vintage Girl Scout items.

What should I collect?

Well, that's up to you! I love collecting older handbooks, but there are lots of options. There are vintage patches, pins, camping equipment, uniforms, camera, postcards, magazines, dolls, catalogs and more. One thing that should be noted with collecting this stuff; expect it to be well used and loved. Girl Scout stuff was bought to be used, not put in a box for decades! My favorite handbooks are the ones where the original owners wrote notes and underlined things, it adds so much character and really adds to the value for me.

Where can I find vintage Girl Scout stuff?

Honestly, eBay is the fastest and easiest way to collect Girl Scout memorabilia.  Etsy also has a lot of listings, but they do err on the overpriced side of the spectrum. However Etsy is useful because almost everything listed there under Girl Scout in the vintage section is a nice item, unlike eBay where everything goes. Estate sales/garage sales can also be fruitful if you get lucky, and flea markets and book stores that sell older books can also yield surprising finds.

I have X Girl Scout item, how much can I sell it for?

The short answer, very little. Girl Scout memorabilia is not popular; really for the most part only Girl Scouts collect it because it's sentimental to us. The only time a Girl Scout piece would be worth a lot is if it is REALLY special or from the earliest days of Girl Scouting (like 1912-1919). If you can search it and find one on eBay, it's not special. It doesn't matter if it's in great condition or old or first edition or whatever, it's more than likely not worth much. People are constantly unloading their late grandma's old GS stuff, or are just cleaning out the house and have no attachment to it. 99% of GS stuff is not rare.

However this makes it a buyer's market. For example, with handbooks I never pay more than $20 (even for the 90 year old books!). For uniforms it really depends on how complete the uniform is. Does it have the socks, scarf, belt, or beret? Just use your common sense when deciding your collecting budget. If something really speaks to your heart and you can safely afford it, get it.

What should I do with all of these collectables?

Enjoy them! Use them! Take care of them! I glance through my handbooks when I'm in the mood, and I use my flashlight on a regular basis. I even put on my vintage uniform and prance around in front of the mirror in it (well that was embarrassing to admit). They aren't likely to accrue much in monetary value, so there's no real reason (in my opinion) to let them just sit on a shelf unless that's what you got them for. Use them as a teaching tool for younger scouts to teach them the history of the movement. It's so much more fun to read the information from an old handbook in person or to see a vintage uniform than it is to see pictures and information regurgitated on a PowerPoint. Be a steward of these items for future generations of scouts.

Where should I go if I want to learn more?

I highly recommend picking up a copy of the Girl Scout Collector’s Guide, 2nd Edition by Mary Degenhardt and Judith Kirsch. It is the definitive book on anything Girl Scouts up until 2005. This book is also an excellent tool for teaching GS history if you are willing to whittle it down. It goes over most memorabilia and history in great detail, making it useful for dating uniforms and awards.

Why I Decided to Volunteer as an Adult Girl Scout

I feel like an appropriate first post here would be to answer the question of why I decided to return to the Girl Scouts. I am a busy graduate student who already struggles to find enough hours in the day to get it all done, so why add something else onto my plate?

I was a Girl Scout for 8 years, 5th grade - 12th grade. I braved the cold grocery store booth sales to sell cookies in the winter, went camping, did service projects, and earned awards just like every other Girl Scout. When I moved to a different state, the first place I made friends was in my new Girl Scout troop where I was warmly welcomed. I loved being a Girl Scout, even when I was in high school and it was pretty uncool. Well, I wasn't cool in high school anyway, let's not kid ourselves....

So why did I not bother to bridge into adults? I wasn't very active in my troop during the later half of my junior year and my senior year. All of my close friends in the troop had already graduated high school, and all of these new girls came in that I not only didn't know, but were 4 years younger than me (we were a multilevel troop). I had already decided to not pursue my Gold Award (although I did earn Bronze and Silver) due to the changing requirements (ugh, Studio 2B) and being busy trying to prepare to go to college. As much as I loved it, it was in my best interest at the time to put it on the back burner.

So now it's time for me to return. I've felt a pull for a few months that I needed to volunteer, so I finally bit the bullet, registered as an adult in my new council and submitted all of the paperwork to become a volunteer. I have been approved as a leader or co-leader, but I would like to dip my toe into event planning as well.

I want to be a positive influence in girl's lives. Girl Scouts was fundamental in shaping me into the person I am today and was a huge part of my identity growing up. I may not have any kids, but that doesn't mean that I can't give back to the organization who taught me so much that I could have never learned in school, and gave me friends that I will never forget.