U.S. Girl Scouts and Cold War “Democratic” Internationalism

U.S. Girl Scouts and Cold War “Democratic” Internationalism

In histories of the Cold War, the robust internationalism and networks of the progressive era are generally overshadowed, if not ended, both by the trauma of World War II and the sudden ascendancy of U.S. hegemony. Girl Scouting, however, one of these progressive-era, internationalist institutions, survived and even thrived. The world scouting organization sought to rebuild German and Japanese girl scouting in the context of ongoing projects of democratization and as a continuation of prewar ideals of democratic internationalism. Moreover, the sudden presence of U.S. military families abroad in unprecedented numbers as part of the postwar military occupations of Germany and Japan fueled explosive growth of U.S. Girl Scouts overseas, and their numbers only grew as the Cold War continued. This unexpected relationship between a national military dedicated to defending America’s interests and a youth movement that pitched peaceful internationalism poses interesting questions for understanding the limits and possibilities of democratic internationalism during the Cold War. Further, examining the postwar rebirth of German and Japanese scouting in the context of overt “democratization” and U.S. efforts to harness “democracy” for its own Cold War ends can help to tease out competing tensions within ideas of democratic citizenship: the gendered one between an independent citizen and dependent woman or girl and between national and universal or global values. Finally, interaction on the troop level between U.S. Girl Scouts and both German Pfadis and Japanese Girl Scouts offers an opportunity to probe the relationship between an imagined democratic internationalism and how it was realized (or not realized) in practice.