The Camp Fire Girls: Gender, Race, and American Girlhood, 1910–1980

by Jennifer Helgren

As the twentieth century dawned, progressive educators established a national organization for adolescent girls to combat what they believed to be a crisis of girls’ education. A corollary to the Boy Scouts of America, founded just a few years earlier, the Camp Fire Girls became America’s first and, for two decades, most popular girls’ organization. Based on Protestant middle-class ideals—a regulatory model that reinforced hygiene, habit formation, hard work, and the idea that women related to the nation through service—the Camp Fire Girls invented new concepts of American girlhood by inviting disabled girls, Black girls, immigrants, and Native Americans to join. Though this often meant a false sense of cultural universality, in the girls’ own hands membership was often profoundly empowering and provided marginalized girls spaces to explore the meaning of their own cultures in relation to changes taking place in twentieth-century America.

Through the lens of the Camp Fire Girls, Jennifer Helgren traces the changing meanings of girls’ citizenship in the cultural context of the twentieth century. Drawing on girls’ scrapbooks, photographs, letters, and oral history interviews, in addition to adult voices in organization publications and speeches, The Camp Fire Girls explores critical intersections of gender, race, class, nation, and disability.

372 pages, Hardcover

Published December 1, 2022

Reviews

[Mary Alice · Rating 3 out of 5]

In "The Camp Fire Girls: Gender, Race and American Girlhood, 1910-1980, Jennifer Helgren demonstrates her comprehensive knowledge and understanding of Camp Fire history, philosophy and ideals. She clearly explains the Camp Fire program and examines how the Camp Fire philosophy and ideals were, and were not, translated into activities for girls. Helgren examines developments in the Camp Fire program within the context of twentieth century America's changing society.
However, I did find Helgren's use of the word "club" instead of "group" grating. I was actively involved in Camp Fire from 1954 until 1975, as a Blue Bird, Camp Fire Girl, member of Horizon Club, assistant Blue Bird leader, camp counselor and Camp Fire Girls' guardian. Only in Horizon Club was the word "club" used in those years. It seems to have been introduced after the 1980s when the boys were included and the program changed significantly. A Camp Fire club before 1975 or 1980 is as incongruous as a Boy Scout club.
More discussion of the changing age of Camp Fire Girls over the decades and how this affected the program would have been useful. In the 1920s Camp Fire Girls were mostly high school or even college age. By the 1950s they wee mostly in elementary school.
This is the best discussion of the Camp Fire Girls that I have read.

[Carson Tremper · Rating 3 out of 5]

Read this in 2 days😵‍💫
Lowkey disappointing and made me confused, wouldn’t really recommend but hopefully I got an A on my précis !