General Robert Baden-Powell
(seated) founded the worldwide scouting movement in England in
1907. He used ideas from
his military career and concepts developed and promoted by Ernest
Thomson Seton (left) and others in the United States. In 1902
Seton, a naturalist and writer, established a boys' organization
called the "League of Woodcraft Indians." Daniel C.
"Uncle Dan" Beard (right) published outdoor books for
boys in the 1880s and 1890s. In 1905 he created a scout-like
organization called the "Sons of Daniel Boone." By
1919 all American scouting groups had been absorbed by the Boy
Scouts of America. Chicago businessman William D. Boyce
(not pictured) led the drive to incorporate the BSA after an
English scout helped him find his way during a visit to London
in 1909.
Source: Library of Congress
[digital I.D. ggbain.06593]
The newly founded Boy Scouts of America published a temporary
Official
Handbook in 1910 that included material provided by Ernest
Thompson Seton and Robert Baden-Powell . Known as the "original
edition," it was used until the first edition of the Handbook
for Boys came out in 1911. Seton's writings continued to
appear in the Handbook until 1916.
Source: Loaned by Russ Votava,
Lincoln
This well-worn copy of the first edition of the Boy Scouts of
America Handbook for Boys
was published in August 1911. It
was used by George A. Gregory, who organized Troop 1 in Crete,
Nebraska, in 1911.
Source: NSHS 8731-141, George
Albert Gregory, courtesy of Dr. Annadora Foss Gregory, Lincoln
Indiancraft by Ernest Thompson Seton is a 1927 reprint of
the 1911 edition of his book originally entitled Two Little
Savages: Being the Adventures of Two Boys Who Lived as Indians
and What They Learned. Seton, who merged his Woodcraft Indians
with the Boy Scouts of America in 1910, was the BSA's first chief
scout. In 1915 Seton was forced out of the BSA in a power struggle
with Executive Secretary James West, but continued to publish
outdoors and woodcraft books and stories until his death in 1946.
Source: 11546-17, Troop 68,
RLDS Church, Lincoln, courtesy of Shawn Bachman, Lincoln
