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A Brief History of the Boy Scouts of America - Beginnings

1907-1910

Lord Robert Baden-Powell (1857-1941) created the Boy Scouts in Britain due to overwhelming response for a book he authored, Aids to Scouting, that was originally targeted towards the military but that found a ready readership among English boys. He later insisted that he, himself, did not start Scouting but that it started itself.
Baden-Powell
William D. Boyce (1858-1929), a newspaper tycoon from America,  founded the BSA in 1910 after discovering the Scouting movement in London. As legend has it, he was lost in a fog in London when a boy came to his aid. After guiding him to his destination, the boy refused a tip, explaining that, as a Scout, he would not take a tip for doing a good turn. This gesture inspired a meeting between Boyce and Baden-Powell. Boyce would later refer to that influential boy as the "Unknown Scout". 

Basing the new Boy Scout movement on Indian lore, Boyce centered its activities around the characteristics of Baden-Powell's Boy Scout organization. He assumed the title "Chief Totem" and soon had an effective program of activities under way. This first Boy Scout venture failed because of poor organization. However, with help from YMCA executives Edgar Robinson, J. A. Van Dis, and Dr. L. L. Doggett, all of whom had a deep interest in establishing the Scout movement, he redoubled his efforts to establish the Boy Scout movement on a firm management footing.
W. D. Boyce
 

1910

The Boy Scouts of America is incorporated by W. D. Boyce in Washington D.C. on February 8. Temporary headquarters are set up in a YMCA office on June 21 through the efforts of a contingent of 34 national boys' work agencies. President Taft is the first honorary president of the BSA; while former President Theodore Roosevelt is the first honorary vice-president.

The initial handbook for the BSA is hastily thrown together, based largely on the original British version created by Baden-Powell; there are also six introductory pamphlets issued. Ranks consist of Tenderfoot, Second Class and First Class.
Founders of the BSA included Boyce, Daniel Carter Beard (1850-1941), National Scout Commissioner, and Ernest Thompson Seton (1860-1946), Chief Scout. James E. West (1876-1948) was appointed as National Executive.

Later clashes between West and both Boyce and Seton resulted in Boyce and Seton leaving the BSA. Seton never returned, while Boyce, who created the Lone Scouts of America, later folded the LSA into the BSA and returned to the organization he founded.
Daniel Carter Beard Ernest Thompson Seton James E. West


  Page last updated January 28, 2009 (DMC)