Review
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Title: Modern Manhood and the Boy Scouts of America: Citizenship, Race, and the Environment, 1910 – 1930
Author: Benjamin Rene Jordan
Publisher: The University of North Carolina Press
Genre: Nonfiction
Year Published: 2016
Number of Pages: 289
Binding: Paperback
ISBN13: 978-1-4696-2765-6
Price: $29.95
Reviewed by Trevor Holyoak for the Association for Mormon Letters
This book is written in a very academic style, and is apparently a textbook. It contains a history of the first 20 years of the Boy Scouts of America against a background of contemporary problems seen to be caused by “racial minorities, females, and teenagers [who] had begun to chop away at native-born, white middle-class and elite men’s community leadership.” [1] The main argument of the book is that while other histories and gender studies “have argued that masculinity was in crisis” during this period, “Boy Scouts of America administrators and supporters effectively adapted Victorian manhood to modernization.” [2] It “demonstrate[s] how and why the BSA spread quickly and cut across barriers of race, class, religion, and place to create a powerful, mainstream model of modern manhood to which a broad range of boys and men did and continue to aspire.” [3] This review will focus on the religious aspects of the history that is portrayed in the book, particularly in regard to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
Part 1 tells of the history of the Boy Scout program in America. It was the combination of several competing organizations that had cropped up around Baden-Powell’s book. (Robert Baden-Powell is considered the father of Scouting. He started the Boy Scout program in England with his book, “Scouting for Boys,” which also led to the formation of similar movements in the United States and elsewhere.) No one organization had gained widespread success, but by combining some of them and setting up a bureaucratic professional leadership early on, they were able to gain support from influential and wealthy businessmen and politicians and even from the federal government, which gave them a federal charter in 1916.
The minimum scouting age was originally set at 12, and most boys were between the ages of 12 and 15, “partly due to their increasing attraction and access to girls, mass leisure, and paid work” [4] (it seems that this problem has never changed). The number of boys involved quickly grew and went from 1,000,000 in 1919 to 4,277,833 in 1930. And “Mormon leaders latched onto Scouting as a way to further their civic and spiritual training of boys while allying themselves with Americanism; as a result, Utah and Idaho soon came to lead the BSA in enrollment rates.” [5]
The book has a section on character and the development of things that helped strengthen it, such as the Scout Law. In spite of statements attributed to Baden-Powell and quoted by both the BSA and the Church such as “There is no religious ‘side’ of the movement. The whole of it is based on religion, that is, on the realization and service of God,” [6] the book claims that Baden-Powell’s original scout program “somewhat downplayed the importance of religious belief,” [7] but the BSA added reverence to the Scout Law because it was felt to be essential. They promoted things such as the marching of troops down the aisle through a church service and singing a patriotic song with the congregation, as well as mowing church lawns and doing other service. “Early BSA sources reveal little domestic dissent on the reverence policy, although the Law stirred some debate at the international level, since Scout organizations in some countries followed Baden-Powell in downplaying focus on religion, while others copied the BSA’s new reverence Law. However, once Catholic, Jewish, and Mormon leaders were convinced to support Scouting, few Americans appeared to raise serious religious complaints on a public level toward the BSA in the 1910s and 1920s.” [8]
Part 2 is called “Reconfiguring Social Hierarchies through Scouting.” In a section about integrating immigrants from Europe, it talks about how local councils were encouraged to accept boys as equal members, regardless of religion, due to fears some immigrants had that Scouting was trying to convert boys to Protestantism. Then, “between 1912 and 1914, administrators granted Catholic, Jewish, Polish, and Mormon organizations’ requests to run exclusive BSA troops with their own appointed leaders, practice their religions at Scout camps, and have representation on local and national Scout councils.” [9]
Due to further concern on the part of Catholics, more efforts were made to incorporate them as equals. “Building [on this], Mormon leaders pursued mainstream American masculine and civic status by adopting Boy Scouting as the religion’s official youth program. The BSA’s modest manhood and emphasis on civic and spiritual duty fit neatly with Mormon teachings. Support for Scouting allowed Mormons to demonstrate their good character and patriotism in an era when some Protestants still considered them to be outside the mainstream. The Mormon’s Young Men’s Mutual Improvement Association (YMMIA) initially maintained a separate Scouting organization under its direct jurisdiction from 1911 to 1913, using the BSA handbook and similar methods, and holding Scout meetings before or after its regular YMMIA sessions. By January 1913, YMMIA Scouts boasted fifteen hundred troops and twenty thousand boy members. However, in response to increasing questions from within its organization about why they should not merge with the BSA and some Mormon boys’ decision to join both Scout organizations, the YMMIA began negotiations with the BSA. The merger agreement confirmed Mormon leaders’ ability to exclude non-Mormons and the joint appointment of the YMMIA’s Dr. John Taylor to oversee all Mormon Scout troops – eventually throughout the United States, Canada, and Mexico. According to a recently published history of Mormon Scouting, ‘Within a few years Scouting was woven into Church curriculum and culture.’ Mormons soon recruited a higher percentage of their boys for Scouting than any other church denomination, and Utah Scout Councils came to enlist a greater portion of the state’s boys than any other state. Being a Mormon boy became synonymous with being a Boy Scout, to the point that today it is one of the largest single blocks among BSA troop sponsors.” [10] “There were at least thirty-eight thousand Mormon Scouts under LDS leadership by 1938.” [11]
In 1914, the BSA attempted to absorb the Polish Scouts of America. This failed, but as a result “the national office demanded that all troop-based Scouting groups be under its direct jurisdiction” and local councils were required to appoint Catholic, Jewish, and Mormon leaders, who “seemed content with these stipulations in exchange for representation on Scout councils and permission to run exclusive BSA troops in which they could control the appointment of Scoutmasters, religious content, and language of instruction. Gaining access to Scouting’s masculine and civic status and privileges without having to give up their denominational or cultural traditions represented a significant step toward white immigrants’ incorporation into the American mainstream.” [12]
The book is not an easy read, and the angle through which the author approaches the history of Scouting may not appeal to many LDS Scouters. But it was interesting to read about how the Church got involved within a broader context than what we normally hear about.
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Footnotes:
1. Page 5. 2. Page 11. 3. Page 14. 4. Page 41. 5. Ibid.
6. http://www.scouting.org/scoutsource/Media/Relationships/ScoutSabbathServices/badenpowell.aspx
7. Page 74. 8. Page 238, note 44. 9. Page 163. 10. Page 165. 11. Page 252, note 16
12. Page 167.