Author: Donovan, William J.
Title: Girl Scouts as a National Asset, Radio Talk of Colonel William J. Donovan over WJZ, October 31, 1930, at 2:30pm.
Year: 1930
Publisher: original carbon copies (?)
Pages and Size: 11”x 8.5”, 4 lvs, approximately 800 words.
Condition: VG/Fine, a 7.5 on a 1-10 scale, with 10 being “new”. Nice and fresh.
- (Condition grading is compared to the condition of the publication when it was new; to give a condition quote that states "good for its age" comparing something to a fluid state without a common denominator is almost without value, so the publication is compared to its condition when it was first published.)
Interesting 800-word radio address by the head of the OSS and founding father and patron saint of the CIA on the importance of teaching leadership skills to young girls and the role of the Girl Scouts in bringing home that mission. The address was made on WJZ which at the time (and by 1927) was the flagship station of NBC Blue (which had purchased the station in 1923 from RCA and which would become ABC in 1942), and seems to me to be very modern of the 57-year old Col. Donovan. Although he maintains that the female's “stronghold” was home and motherhood, he declared that “a highly speed civilization (will) call upon her for many other capacities and activities”.
“Any organization that can fit America's girlhood for true American womanhood is a nation's asset.”
“The Scout movement [begun in 1912 by Juliette Gordon Low] meets a demand for social education and training in leadership at a period in the girl's life when that sort of training is most vital” he writes.
“The Nation today demands that women be as well trained and as fully adapted to the national life as men”, which to me appears to be more a more liberated position than most significant men would have in 1930 (and beyond). “The scout troop plan gives the individual girl a sense of duty, a consciousness of ability, an ideal of courage and a recognition of he necessity of remaining an individual while she functions in a group, at the same time making the group achievement greater because of her individual contribution” he continues.
Provenance: Library of Congress Pamphlet Collection (though there are no markings attesting to that, the document did come with others from that collection). On the bottom of the back of the first page is a penciled annotation, “Gift/Author/Dec 5 1930”, which means Gen. Donovan gave this to the LC at that time.
Rare document. I can also find no trace of it using the normal channels. Perhaps there is a record of Donovan's opinions on this matter deep in other sources, but not being expert in this area I would not know if that was the case or not.
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