Juliette Gordon Low, Founder Of The Girl Scouts, Finds Herself

Savannah, Georgia is home to the International Girl Scouts thanks to the efforts of one of the city's "favorite daughters," Juliette Gordon Low

. The organization sprang from the ashes of her failed marriage, and grew in spite of her hearing handicap.

Happy Childhood

As a child, Juliette Gordon Low loved literature and the fine arts, talents which proved to be instrumental to the Girl Scouts later in life. She was self-taught in painting and sculpture and became a gifted poet and dramatist.

Juliette had a contented childhood, but endured a stormy marriage. The suffering which marked the dissolution of her marriage proved to be the birth pangs of the Girl Scouts.

Mid-Life Crisis

It started out promising enough when she tied the knot with a wealthy Englishman in Savannah. They moved to Britain, but Juliette traveled a lot. She felt a particular burden to join her mother in ministering to wounded American troops during the Spanish-American War.

When she returned to Britain after the War, her marriage was in a shambles. It ended abruptly when her husband died of a stroke in 1905. His will left most of the fortune to his mistress, which left Mrs. Low in a state of depression.

Juliette Gordon Low took to the road and did a lot of soul searching for the next five years. Things came to a head when in 1911 she met Sir Robert Baden-Powell. It was a fateful meeting because Baden-Powell was founder of the Boy Scouts. She drew inspiration from him to do the same thing for girls. In about a year she was back home in America and at that time made the phone call to a distant cousin in which she uttered the now historic words:

Girl Scouts Organized

"Come right over! I've got something for the girls of Savannah, and all of America, and all the world, and we're going to start it tonight! Immediately Juliette recruited 18 girls and on March 12, 1912 formed the first troop of "American Girl Guides". The following year they reorganized under the name of Girl Scouts.

Juliette Gordon Low wanted girls to step out into lives of active citizenship. She sought to teach self-reliance and resourcefulness to girls from all social classes by introducing them into the out-of-doors.

Beyond her wildest dreams, the little band of 18 girls from the original troop, multiplied to its current 3.7 million members. Girl Scouts is the world's largest educational group for girls, having influenced more than 50 million girls over the past hundred years. The home of the Girl Scouts is also right next door to America's most popular vacation destination at Hilton Head Island, South Carolina.

by: Oliver Woods.

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