Then and Now: The Lutherville Girl Scouts

Cookies? Check.

A friendship song? Check.

A pledge, a lesson, and a contribution to society? Check, check and check.

Sounds like nothing has changed in the Girl Scouts between the 1940s and today.

The Girl Scouts were founded by Juliette Gordon Lowe in 1912. Maggie Burke, 10, a current Lutherville girl scout in Troop 4461, is an expert on this, as she did a report on Lowe last year when she was in third grade.

“They learned the same things as us, like being helpful. And they had snack back then, too,” she said.

Snacks are important.

But more important is Lowe’s vision of what the girl scouts could do for young women.

Lowe wanted to bring girls “out of their sheltered home environments to serve their communities, experience the out-of-doors, and give them the opportunity to develop self-reliance and resourcefulness,” according to the Wikipedia page on girl scouts.

Fast forward a few decades. Lowe’s vision had become a reality. The girl scouts in the 1940s were involved in the efforts of World War II. They operated bicycle courier services, collected scrap metal, shipped donated clothing overseas to war victims, and educated women on survival skills and helping children cope with blackouts and air raids.

It is unknown what the Lutherville girl scouts of the 1940s did for the war effort – the photos that survive of Lutherville’s Troop 357 only show them dancing and wearing traditional Dutch high peaked lace hats, and posing with their ankles crossed on stone steps. The Lutherville girl scouts of today, specifically Brownie Troop 1138, got a huge kick out of these old photos, and posed themselves in similar fashions.

Take a moment to click through the photos to see how they echoed their forebearers from 65 years ago.

Today’s Brownies are proud of the girl scout tradition of helping people. Lisa Burke is the leader of Brownie Troop 1138, and her Brownies took some time to list the ways in which they feel like they contribute.

• Grace Engel, 9, said, “We learn ways to help the world and our community.”
• Mackenzie Hoey, 9, said, “We sometimes clean up litter, and we help people in need.”
• Katie Oertel, 9, said, “To be helpful, we make little sock toys for the cats at the animal shelter with catnip inside.”

Some other girl scouts mentioned how they have donated first aid kits to a homeless shelter, made dog biscuits from scratch to give to a shelter, and made sure to recycle the paper when they were learning how to scrapbook.

Lisa Burke chimed in, “And always leave the place better than you found it!” That’s one of the tenets of girl scouting.

Burke opened up her laptop to show her Brownies the photos of the 1940s girl scouts.  The eagerness with which today’s girl scouts crowded around her to see these girls of yore, that they relate to so much, is touching (see pics). “I think when they went camping, they made their own fires, for marshmallows!” said Stephanie Diacogiannis, 9, excitedly.

Hopefully, those 1940s girl scouts had time to do just that, even with their World War II duties.

And of course, hopefully, they had snack.