Ryan Anderson on Modern Manhood and the Boy Scouts of America

Benjamin René Jordan. Modern Manhood and the Boy Scouts of America: Citizenship, Race, and the Environment, 1910-1930. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2016. Illustrations. 306 pp. $29.95, paper, ISBN 978-1-4696-2765-6. Reviewed by Ryan Anderson Published on H-SHGAPE (March, 2017) Commissioned by Jay W. Driskell By sheer coincidence, I watched the Board‐ gang goolie, goolie, goolie, goolie, watcha” over‐ walk Empire episode titled “Ging Gang Goolie” af‐ whelms his stifled sobs.[1] ter reading Benjamin Renè Jordan’s Modern Man‐ The scene struck me: adults fervently and au‐ hood and the Boy Scouts of America. In one scene, thentically espousing organizational ideas every US Attorney General Harry Daugherty regales a person in the room understood differently; boys group of Boy Scouts, troop leaders, and Boys singing a British marching song; and conflict Scouts of America (BSA) executives with a story overwhelmed (or overshadowed) by moving for‐ about an “honest injun” with a forthright nature. ward together. It underscores Jordan’s argument As Daugherty sits after fnishing, a BSA official in Modern Manhood and the Boy Scouts of Ameri‐ thanks him and tells the assemblage that he can ca that Scouting was popular during the 1910s see they are “the moral fber of America”; they and 1920s because it offered economic, civic, so‐ are destined for leadership; and when they suc‐ cial, and cultural privileges afforded white men ceed as men—there might be a future Babe Ruth by methods both universal and local. Living as a or even a Warren G. Harding in the room—they Scout meant practicing and embodying a manli‐ will remember they won their laurels as Scouts ness representing the acme of American civiliza‐ because, “it’s all there in the Scout Law, isn’t it?” tion. The official reads the Scout Oath out loud and Modern Manhood and the Boy Scouts of Daugherty’s colleague and partner-in-crime Jesse America is a splendid reinterpretation of the Smith, who is sitting next to him, breaks down. BSA’s early years and growth. Jordan emphasizes Seeing the scrubbed faces of the collective Scout‐ the organization’s place within the larger transat‐ ing community and hearing what makes a man lantic Scouting movement, which reflected corpo‐ worthy of civil leadership and respect is unbear‐ rate society’s emergence and normalization dur‐ able. Smith cries and moans to Daugherty, regard‐ ing the Progressive Era. Central to the BSA’s suc‐ ing Teapot Dome, “We stole Harry, we stole!” At cess were the opportunities it created for early this point, Troop 14 from Laurel, Maryland, takes twentieth-century boys and men, who blended over, singing a “campfre favorite.” Smith is quick‐ traditional and modern ideas about gender by ly ushered out of the room as the refrain of “Ging creating a particular Scouting manliness. By bal‐ ancing top-down and bottom-up perspectives, this H-Net Reviews book explains how the BSA defined what an found in a major metropolitan area. Second, American boy looked like and did outdoors for a Scouting depended on Twelve Laws and the Scout surprisingly broad swath of Americans. The peo‐ Oath, which blended Victorian modesty and self- ple Jordan describes and analyzes are not anxious control with the modern faith in efficiency, man‐ about America’s transition from industrial capital‐ agement skills, and corporate hierarchy. A frst ism to corporate capitalism. They are engaged group of laws demanded that members worked with sorting out their assumptions about what is cheerfully, spent thriftily, and demonstrated their right and true in a new way so that they could de‐ trustworthiness, obedience, and loyalty. Such velop qualities their parents and grandparents re‐ qualities made Scouts into good company men spected while anticipating new virtues they need‐ and represented a shift from self-made manhood ed to get ahead in modern corporate America. to self-supportive manhood. A second grouping of These are “doers.” Given a set of tools they fgure laws included being friendly, helpful, reverent, out what they will make of themselves while bal‐ brave, clean, courteous, and kind and defined ancing the imperatives that come from member‐ how Scouts interacted with people of color by po‐ ship in a nationally based organization and a de‐ sitioning them in a dichotomy. In that way, a Scout sire for individualism and local authority. Scout‐ became known as white, male, and capable of ing was—as Jordan aptly describes it—an appren‐ leading their inferiors. Members practiced all ticeship in manliness at a time when American these tenets on outdoor adventures within a tight‐ capitalism’s transformation radically reordered ly knit troop of peers under the eye of their troop‐ what it meant to be a boy, a man, and an adult. It master. Third, Scouts assumed civic roles by prac‐ let men help boys demonstrate their civic ftness ticing patriotism and citizenship. The BSA had and potential for success. Scouts encourage voting in their towns as a way This book’s frst and more substantive part of practicing democracy in a nonpartisan fashion. examines four core elements of the BSA as they Their Good Turn initiative built relations with lo‐ developed together during the teens and twenties. cal politicians for whom Scouting was an asset First, by balancing democratic volunteerism and and appealed to Scouts because it was seen as corporate professionalism, the BSA out-recruited leadership training that came with the benefits and overwhelmed competing organizations be‐ and privileges of recognition from local, state, and tween 1910 and the start of World War I before national political and moral leaders. Fourth, the expanding its reach and control of Scouting dur‐ nature activities the BSA sponsored further indi‐ ing the twenties. With an array of powerful men cated its successful blending of traditional and behind the organization, lawyer and child welfare modern values. Nature study, hiking, camping, activist James West standardized what Scouting and conservation all gave boys manly pursuits out was and did for its participants. The middle-class of doors and appeased adults worried about the men who staffed troop leadership and local coun‐ negative impacts of child labor laws and compul‐ cils decided how Scouting’s principles played out sory schooling on job preparation. locally. They were, after all, the ones who generat‐ Part 1 makes a convincing argument for how ed the dues income that funded the BSA’s work. the BSA’s apprenticeship in manliness functioned. Scouting attracted boys who wanted a way of Jordan aptly targets an important transition in making themselves manly away from home, at a each of his frst four chapters: American Scout‐ stage in life when they needed the help of a re‐ ing’s shift from confederacy of like-minded people spected organization, living in parts of the United to well-functioning corporation; the metamorpho‐ States where that opportunity was limited by the sis of Lord Baden-Powell’s blend of militaristic, lack of economic and social opportunities one classist, and primitive morals into a blend of Vic‐ 2 H-Net Reviews torian and modern values; the assumption that BSA did not simply absorb the Girl Scouts, espe‐ the BSA could and should assume responsibility of cially since some Boy Scout troops had been ac‐ civic education rather than families and schools; cepting girls as members as early as 1908. and the reimagining of nature as an environment In part 2 of Modern Manhood and the Boy that could no longer be romanticized, but now Scouts of America, Jordan shows how Scouting should be seen as a national resource. Taken to‐ principles let BSA officials model a society that in‐ gether, these changes explain why boys and men cluded and sorted boys who were not WASPs put their faith in Scouting as a way of adapting to (white Anglo-Saxon Protestants). Prior to World the modern socioeconomic environment—it de‐ War I, the BSA focused on growing membership fined progress according to Scouting’s “classless and overwhelming its competitors, including the standard” (p. 43). Scouting’s mechanism for creat‐ Salvation Army Scouts, Polish National Alliance ing opportunity looked fair. But it privileged Scouts, Peace Scouts, and even Young Men’s Chris‐ whiteness and maleness by, frst, letting leaders tian Association (YMCA) scouting programs. Fur‐ decide who could and could not join their particu‐ thermore, since troop formation followed local lar troops on an individual basis and, second, ex‐ initiative, BSA policy allowed for troops that were pecting what was for people outside the middle exclusively Catholic or Jewish, or that identified class a cost-prohibitive commitment to uniforms, with a particular ethnic identity. Sometimes, gear, and time. Jordan might have employed bio‐ troops in urban areas included members from a graphic elements at strategic points in this sec‐ cross section of these identities. Since troops tion. For instance, I found myself curious about could operate in accordance with their particular people like West and other BSA leaders like beliefs and sometimes languages, the BSA won the William D. Boyce, Edgar Robinson, George DuPont support of ethnic leaders and labor organizers. Pratt, Lee Hamer, and John Alexander. Outside of Despite this ethnic and religious diversity, ft‐ the knowledge that these men were philan‐ ting into the BSA’s ideas about manliness meant thropists and child-savers, I wondered what moti‐ accepting that membership was only for those vations drove their work. As is, they come across who could fnancially afford to abide by Scout as passionless bureaucrats. Law. This is especially evident in the relationship Additionally, the role of the Girl Scouts of between the BSA and both rural and African America (GSA) in this history remains underex‐ American boys.

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