Online Smithsonian Collection and Archive List

If you’re like me, you love browsing through Girl Scout history. The Smithsonian has catalogued its Girl Scout items online and many of them include pictures!  Here’s a link that will take you straight to its items, and I’ve narrowed it down further to only show items with pictures.  Some of my thoughts:

• Many of the items are identified incorrectly (like labeling badges as patches and mixing up BSA and GG items for GSUSA), but they’re still fun to look at.
• You can stop at about page 11 because a bunch of non-Girl Scout items show up at that point.  There might be a few things scattered after that, but I didn’t go much further.
• It’s always a little disconcerting when you see things that you wore growing up labeled as vintage and historical.
• I am not sure why this Girl Scout Glove Make-Up Kit got my attention, but I need to research it in the GS Catalog website to find out what exactly it is.
• Alas, no OFFICIAL scarves were featured. If you want to see a display of them, check this out!

Thanks to Echo for sharing this online extravaganza with us.

If you like this sort of thing, be sure to “Like” these Facebook pages, groups, websites, and resources:

• Girl Scout Memorabilia (FB) – items from the collection of Carol and Ernie Altvater are highlighted daily
• FL Girl Scout Collection & Miss Daisy tour blogs (FB)
• GS History and Archive Community (FB) – discussion about items and archiving
• Girl Scout History Friends (FB)
• I mentioned it above, but the Girl Scout Catalog website is mind blowing.
• Vintage Girl Scout Online Museum – another great website that you can get lost in for hours!
• Leader Magazine archive
• Cookie Crumbs – catalog of cookie incentives
• Council’s Own Digital Archive – a collection of vintage and former council’s own badges
• The OFFICIAL Scarf SHOWCASE! – you didn’t think I’d leave this out, did you?
• Girl Scout Collector’s Guide: A History of Uniforms, Insignia, Publications, and Memorabilia (Second Edition) – a book chock full of everything you can think of. Unfortunately, it hasn’t been updated since 2005.  I’ve heard that this isn’t due to lack of trying though and more about a lack of response from the folks up in NYC.
• If you know of others, let me know in the comment section below and I’ll add it to this list

In other news, reports are coming in that GSUSA is downgrading Volunteer Systems 2.0 to get to the bottom of its troubles: