CAMPFIRE GIRLS

New York: Donahue, 1916. Very good plus.. A short story of the Campfire Girls, a popular fiction series from the early 20th century based upon a girls' club very similar to the Girl Scouts. Officially incorporated as a national organization in 1912, the Camp Fire Girls was a youth development program meant to teach girls the skills of outdoors self-sufficiency. It was a nonsectarian group that still exists today as a gender inclusive organization. In its early years, the org took a problematic approach to camping, dressing white girls in approximations of traditional clothing of Indigenous nations, including "playing" various tribes. The Art Nouveau-influenced images of this publication capture the cheerful appropriation of those years of the program. A nice copy, much scarcer than the books in the series. Folio. Original color pictorial wrappers. Illustrated with 6 full-page color images and brown illustrations in line. [16] pages (including wrappers).