The first Girl Scout troop was founded in Virginia in 1912, and it wasn’t long before troops sprouted up throughout the nation. Founded by Juliette Gordon Low, the organization was modeled to build “courage, confidence, and character,” as their mission statement declares. Becoming a Girl Scout also provided young girls with leadership opportunities and outdoor experiences, not unlike their male peers in the Boy Scouts program.
\nIn 1920, a group of mothers in Ogden, Utah united to find a positive community for their daughters. They initially looked into Campfire Girls, but ultimately discovered that the Girl Scouts were more suited to their needs. Advertising the opportunity in local schools, they soon had enough willing participants to create Utah’s first ever Girl Scout troop. Just a year later, another troop formed in Salt Lake City.
\nIn the late 1940s Barbara Schmidt, a student at Hawthorne Elementary School in Salt Lake City, was thrilled at the prospect of becoming a Girl Scout. She saw an announcement at her school for a new local troop and ran home that afternoon excitedly to ask her mom if she could go. Barbara became a Brownie which was, at the time, the group for girls aged eight to ten years old. The troop met at first in the home of the troop leader, a mother of her classmate, but as the troop grew they began meeting in the basement of Zion Lutheran Church.
\nSome of Barbara’s fondest memories are from her summers at camp––and all of the months spent selling cookies in preparation. Each scout who wished to attend a camp had a quota to meet, so they had to be both diligent and creative to meet their goals. In her years of motherhood Barbara always followed her own cookie-selling scouts at a safe distance in her mini van, back in her day Barbara and her fellow scouts were often allowed out on their own––so long as they stuck with a buddy at all times. She spent countless afternoons pulling a red wagon full of cookies, twenty-five cents each, up and down the neighborhoods of Salt Lake. Her troop also received permission from the local Catholic church to sell cookies in the parking lot after mass, which drummed up a fair amount of business. When their work was done, the girls boarded an old rickety school bus that trudged wearily up the mountain to camp. Once they had finally arrived the girls spent their days developing outdoorsmanship skills and making friendships that would last a lifetime.
\nBesides selling cookies and camping, Barbara recalls participating in service projects and feeling that she was “making a real difference in the community.” Though she states that she is not quite “going strong” in her volunteering today as she once did, she continues to volunteer regularly at the Heritage Museum in the Girl Scouts of Utah Council Resource Center. She continues to advocate for the girl scout program because it helps young girls to “embrace a perspective beyond their own.
","sponsor":null,"accessinfo":"","lede":"Barbara Schmidt, a scout of 65 years, recalls her fondest memories growing up as a girl scout in mid-twentieth century Utah.","website":"","related_resources":["Girl Scouts History. Accessed December 5, 2024. https://www.girlscouts.org/en/discover/about-us/history.html
","Girl Scouts of Utah. Accessed December 5, 2024. https://www.gsutah.org/
","Schmidt, Barbara. Interview with the author. February 8, 2025. "],"factoids":["Throughout the 1960s-70s the Girl Scouts of Utah hit their peak with about 10,000 girls enrolled in troops throughout the state. Today there are about 8,000 scouts enrolled."],"files":{"https://www.intermountainhistories.org/files/fullsize/0d86281475893b6bdc8c122102bc6d41.jpg":{"id":4063,"mime-type":"image/png","title":"Sisters posing in their Girl Scout uniforms circa 1970","description":"Used with permission from the Girl Scouts of Utah Council Resource Center in Salt Lake City Utah.","thumbnail":"https://www.intermountainhistories.org/files/square_thumbnails/0d86281475893b6bdc8c122102bc6d41.jpg"},"https://www.intermountainhistories.org/files/fullsize/e5c9305fd90590e8cb782ad2683effdc.jpg":{"id":4064,"mime-type":"image/png","title":"Charlotte “Char” Corbit","description":"Charlotte “Char” Corbit, a member of Provo, Utah’s first Girl Scout troop in 1953. She went on to serve as a troop leader, interim CEO, and director of several departments throughout her 33 years with the organization. | Used with permission from the Girl Scouts of Utah Council Resource Center in Salt Lake City Utah.","thumbnail":"https://www.intermountainhistories.org/files/square_thumbnails/e5c9305fd90590e8cb782ad2683effdc.jpg"},"https://www.intermountainhistories.org/files/fullsize/f88010078e8677d5c440b705bbe6355b.jpg":{"id":4065,"mime-type":"image/png","title":"Patch on a painted quilt decorated by a young scout to commemorate her troop’s participation in the Boy Scout’s Pinewood Derby race","description":"Used with permission from the Girl Scouts of Utah Council Resource Center in Salt Lake City Utah. | Photograph taken by Megan Bailey","thumbnail":"https://www.intermountainhistories.org/files/square_thumbnails/f88010078e8677d5c440b705bbe6355b.jpg"},"https://www.intermountainhistories.org/files/fullsize/a3e1d67a50268d24f98eccbf65886c34.jpg":{"id":4066,"mime-type":"image/png","title":"Girl Scout uniform formerly belonging to Cornelia “Cornie” Benton, Utah’s “oldest girl scout.”","description":"Before her passing in 2006, she’d been involved in the Girl Scouts of Utah for 83 years. While she never had children of her own, she was beloved by the local scouts who she considered her daughters. | Used with permission from the Girl Scouts of Utah Council Resource Center in Salt Lake City Utah. | Photograph taken by Megan Bailey","thumbnail":"https://www.intermountainhistories.org/files/square_thumbnails/a3e1d67a50268d24f98eccbf65886c34.jpg"},"https://www.intermountainhistories.org/files/fullsize/acf847cab93791081c770b728ea3863a.jpg":{"id":4067,"mime-type":"image/png","title":"Earth day quilt created by a local troop and a uniform from the 1940s, one of the rooms in the Heritage Museum","description":"Used with permission from the Girl Scouts of Utah Council Resource Center in Salt Lake City Utah. | Photograph taken by Megan Bailey","thumbnail":"https://www.intermountainhistories.org/files/square_thumbnails/acf847cab93791081c770b728ea3863a.jpg"},"https://www.intermountainhistories.org/files/fullsize/0325fc4b73023c44cd61c21644618238.jpg":{"id":4068,"mime-type":"image/png","title":"Newspaper clipping promoting the Girl Scouts organization","description":"https://www.deseret.com/2006/2/5/19936552/cookies-big-business-for-girl-scouts/","thumbnail":"https://www.intermountainhistories.org/files/square_thumbnails/0325fc4b73023c44cd61c21644618238.jpg"}}}