Our Frontier Is the World

Mischa Honeck

Description

Mischa Honeck's Our Frontier Is the World is a provocative account of how the Boy Scouts echoed and enabled American global expansion in the twentieth century.The Boy Scouts of America (BSA) has long been a standard bearer for national identity. The core values of the organization have, since its founding in 1910, shaped what it means to be an American boy and man. As Honeck shows, those masculine values had implications that extended far beyond the borders of the United States. Writing the global back into the history of one of the country's largest youth organizations, Our Frontier Is the World details how the BSA operated as a vehicle of empire from the Progressive Era up to the countercultural moment of the 1960s. American boys and men wearing the Scout uniform never simply hiked local trails to citizenship; they forged ties with their international peers, camped in foreign lands, and started troops on overseas military bases. Scouts traveled to Africa and even sailed to icy Antarctica, hoisting the American flag and standing as models of loyalty, obedience, and bravery. Through scouting America's complex engagements with the world were presented as honorable and playful masculine adventures abroad.Innocent fun and earnest commitment to doing a good turn, of course, were not the whole story. Honeck argues that the good-natured Boy Scout was a ready means for soft power abroad and gentle influence where American values, and democratic capitalism, were at stake. In other instances the BSA provided a pleasant cover for imperial interventions that required coercion and violence. At Scouting's global frontiers the stern expression of empire often lurked behind the smile of a boy.

Sujets

• Histoire
• USA
• 20th century
• History of the Americas
• États-Unis

Informations

• Publié par: Cornell University Press
• Date de parution: 15 mai 2018
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781501716201
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 12 Mo

Extrait

Our Frontier Is the World

A VOLUME IN THE SERIES

THE UNITED STATES IN THE WORLD Edited by Mark Philip Bradley, David C. Engerman, Amy S. Greenberg, and Paul A. Kramer

A list of titles in this series is available at cornellpress.cornell.edu.

Our Frontier Is the World

The Boy Scouts in the Age of American Ascendancy

Mischa Honeck

Cornell University Press Ithaca and London

Copyright © 2018 by Cornell University

All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in a review, this book, or parts thereof, must not be reproduced in any form without permission in writing from the publisher. For information, address Cornell University Press, Sage House, 512 East State Street, Ithaca, New York 14850.

First published 2018 by Cornell University Press

Printed in the United States of America

Library of Congress CataloginginPublication Data

Names: Honeck, Mischa, 1976–author.  Title: Our frontier is the world : the Boy Scouts in the age of American ascendancy / Mischa Honeck.  Description: Ithaca : Cornell University Press, 2018. | Series: The United States in the world | Includes bibliographical references and index.  Identifiers: LCCN 2017040107 (print) | LCCN 2017043855 (ebook) | ISBN 9781501716195 (epub/mobi) | ISBN 9781501716201 (pdf ) | ISBN 9781501716188 (cloth : alk. paper)  Subjects: LCSH: Boy Scouts of America—History. | Scouting (Youth activity)—Political aspects—United States. | Imperialism—Social aspects—United States—History.  Classification: LCC HS3313 (ebook) | LCC HS3313 .H66 2018 (print) | DDC 369.430973—dc23  LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017040107

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Cover illustration: Norman Rockwell,WayPointing the , 1962. Calendar Illustration for the Boy Scouts of America for Brown & Bigelow Co.; media print lithograph on paper. With permission of the National Scouting Museum.

Keen, clean face of the embryo man . . . Conquer the world, as you will and can! We dip the flag to your worldlong file And the whimsical vim of your Boy Scout smile. —Edmund Vance Cooke,Salute the Boy Scouts, 1919

Boy Scouts of America are all over the world. Kind of like the army, everybody has heard of it. —Fourteenyearold Boy Scout dropout, 1968

To Elena, Nikita, and Vera, who light my way

List of Illustrations Acknowledgments Abbreviations

Contents

Introduction: The White Boy’s Burden 1. Brothers Together: Men, Boys, and the Rejuvenation of Empire 2. From Africa to Antarctica: Expeditions to the Global Frontier 3. A Junior League of Nations: Campfire Diplomacy at the World Jamborees 4. A Brother to All? Scouting and the Problem of Race 5. Youth Marches: Depression, Dictators, and War 6. Are You a Crusader? Raising Cold Warriors 7. Innocents Abroad: Scouting across the U.S. Military Empire Epilogue: The Woes of Aging

Appendix: Questionnaire Notes Bibliography Index

ix xi xv

1 19 54

88 129 168 206 243 275

287 289 333 365

1.1

1.2

1.3 2.1

2.2 3.1 3.2 3.3

4.1

4.2 4.3

5.1

5.2

5.3

Illustrations

Robert BadenPowell, Ernest Thompson Seton, and Daniel Carter Beard Boy Scouts sell Liberty Bonds in New York City during the Second Liberty Loan Drive George J. Fisher and a Boy Scout honor Theodore Roosevelt Robert Dick Douglas, Douglas Oliver, and David Martin pose with two dead lions in the Serengeti Paul Siple in winter explorer gear “The League of Youth” Flag bearers at the March of Nations in Arrowe Park, England U.S. Boy Scouts dressed as Plains Indians perform a Native American dance in Arrowe Park, England Moro children lined up before an Americanbuilt settlement houseinZamboanga,SouthernPhilippines Moro Boy Scouts taking the Scout oath Training course for African American scoutmasters at Hampton Normal and Agricultural Institute, Virginia Young German American Bundists at Camp Nordland, New Jersey Franklin Delano Roosevelt pins the Eagle Scout award on a Boy Scout during the National Jamboree in Washington, DC Japanese American Scouts during a morning flagraising ceremony at the Heart Mountain Relocation Center

27

46 50

72 77 99 100

112

136 136

150

177

185

194