Juliette Gordon Low

[upbeat music]Pop quiz, hot shot.

In what city did Juliette Gordon Low start the first Girl Scout troop? New York City, Atlanta, Savannah, or Boston? [timer beeping] If you said Savannah, scouts honor.

Juliette Gordon Low started Girl Guides of America in 1912.

She believed outdoor activities, sports, camping, and learning practical skills could help girls become more self-reliant.

Girl Scouts cookie season is still a few months away, but they're already giving us a taste of what's coming in 2027.

They didn't have sports.

So in 1912 when Girl Scouts were founded i- by Juliette Gordon Low, who was a, a disabled woman who had lost her husband and was on a, on her own and wanted to start a space for girls to, you know, connect with each other and to have ...

And even the cookie sale then starts a few years later, and it's like, it's a time we have to remember when even my mother-in-law couldn't open a bank account without getting, as a single mom, without getting her brother to co-sign in the 1970s.

So this is, women couldn't have agency in the same way, and the cookie sale, as it started out, had that kind of revolutionary root, right? With, with girls and women saying, "We're gonna raise some money and do this thing." And I think that's really interesting to me, um, especially with some of the storyline around Olive, you know, uh, trying to advocate for the girls to get more per box and such.

And, you know, one of the things you noted there about the Girl Scouts is that they said, "Well, we, we have always served all faiths." Well, [laughs] here's the, the little contextual piece they don't offer, which is that the Girl Scouts were established in an assumed Christian environment.

So Juliette Gordon Low, who established the Girl Scouts, was a very, very strong Christian, and part of the reason that she insisted that one of the, um, key oaths and commitments that a Girl Scout makes is service to God and country.

Not a god, but God.

So there was assumed there was a particular god that we are serving here.