Exhibit celebrates Iowa’s ties to Girl Scouts history

By Timothy Walch

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What's your favorite Girl Scout cookie? Thin Mints? Samoas? Everyone has an opinion. There's no controversy, however, about the wonderful young women who sell these delights or the money they raise to support scouting.

But Girl Scouting is more than cookie sales and that message comes through in an important new exhibit at the Hoover Presidential Library. “On My Honor, I Will Try … One Hundred Years of Girl Scouts” tells the story of leadership programs and other opportunities for girls and young women over the past century.

Featured in the display are pictures, newspaper articles, memorabilia, film footage and uniforms as well as an exact reproduction of the Girl Scout “Little House.” The “Little House” was a doll-sized house first set up in the early 1920s to demonstrate the homemaking activities of the Girl Scouts. The exhibit continues in West Branch until March 25.

And thanks to Iowa's own Lou Henry Hoover, there's no better museum to host such an exhibit. “I was a Scout years ago,” Lou was fond of saying, “before the movement ever started, when my father took me hunting, fishing and hiking in the mountains. [Back] then I was sorry that more girls could not have what I had. When I learned of the movement I thought, here is what I always wanted other girls to have.”

Lou embraced the opportunity to join the scouting movement at the earliest possible opportunity. In 1917, she was personally recruited by Juliette Low, founder of the Girl Scouts, and she served continuously as a board member or officer for the rest of her life. A poignant item in the exhibit is Mrs. Hoover's last Girl Scout uniform.

Lou was more than a national spokeswoman, however; she also was a troop leader. “Troop 8,” reminisced one of its former members, “ ... worked with Mrs. Hoover as a group to be called upon for participation in civic demonstrations, parades, international conference, and so forth. We served at international Scout luncheons, demonstrated Scouting to the public and perhaps were the first Senior Service troop.”

Lou also knew a thing or two about cookies and fundraising. To paraphrase historian Richard Norton Smith, Lou was the “Mother of All Girl Scout Cookies,” It is true that Florence E. Neil of Chicago deserves the credit for the first cookie sales. But the campaign really took off in the mid-1930s during Lou's second term as GSA president when the GSA board approved the plan to turn the production over to a commercial bakery and officially endorse this effort to raise funds for the future of the GSA.

Were she with us today, it's not likely that Lou would care very much about getting credit for the cookie campaign. In fact, she would see the sales only as a means to a loftier goal: providing wholesome opportunities for young women to reach their full potential. That has been the message of the Girl Scouts of America for more than a century, and that's the message of the exhibit at the Hoover Library.

Timothy Walch is the director emeritus of the Hoover Presidential Library. Comments: Twalch47@gmail.com.