Modern Manhood and the Boy Scouts of America: Citizenship, Race, and the Environment, 1910–1930

Abstract

In this contribution to the history of manhood in the early twentieth century, Benjamin René Jordan has positioned the Boy Scouts of America (BSA) as an ideal site of exploration for gender historians. Jordan cleverly stages a recurring tension among BSA officials: whether to embrace an aggressive masculinity (typified by the so-called axemen of the organization) or a more corporate orientation (the “typewriter men”). Examining organizational records and mining memoirs and biographies for evidence, Jordan challenges the received notion within the historiography of this period that manhood was in crisis. Instead, he sees the BSA as more adaptive to the native-born white ideals of an earlier age and responsive to the emerging managerial needs of corporate America. The book is appropriately sensitive to BSA aims and principles and is organized accordingly. In part 1 Jordan connects the history of Scouting to Progressive Era thinking about society, manhood, race, and the environment. Jordan reviews the early BSA, investigating how the organization instituted bureaucratic systems of control over local councils and those areas where Scouting thrived. He then analyzes the BSA oath and law, uniform practices, civic participation, and the Good Turn concept. A subsequent chapter considers Boy Scouts' primary activities, including nature study, hiking, camping, and conservation. A consistent theme of part 1 is how Scouting strived for “a new work ethic and character model that better enabled members to manage a modernizing economy and diversifying society” (p. 83).