Until her mother’s death in 1917, Juliette Gordon Low stayed at the Gordon family house (now the Juliette Gordon Low Birthplace) whenever she was in Savannah. In 1912, she came home to the Gordon house full of plans to start Girl Scouts (then known as Girl Guides) in the United States after learning about and working with Girl Guides in England and Scotland. It is from this house that she called her cousin, Nina Pape, and said “Come right over. I’ve got something for the girls of Savannah, and all of America, and all the world and we’re going to start it tonight!”
Juliette Low introduced her plans for a new girls’ club to Savannah mothers and daughters at tea parties hosted at the Gordon family house and in friends’ homes around town. Troops of Savannah Girl Guides may have been meeting informally as early as March 9, 1912, in homes of friends and family and the Female Orphan Asylum.
March 12th was later designated as the official founding date because on that day the first members were officially registered (18 girls divided into two patrols) in the presence of the first board of Councilors. This meeting was held in the Louisa Porter Home, a charity for women and children which stood on the southwest corner of Drayton Street. (There is a small plaque commemorating the site’s Girl Scout history on the steps of the red brick building that now stands on the spot.)
First troop members remembered signing their names to a roster, reciting the Promise and Law, learning to tie knots, and snacking on milk and crackers. Then they walked across the street to view the building being cleaned and fitted up for their new clubhouse, now Girl Scout First Headquarters. The clubhouse was in the carriage house behind the house Juliette Low inherited from her husband, now the Andrew Low House Museum. Low was renting out the house to the Nash family in 1912, who generously turned the carriage house over to the girls without a reduction in rent.
So officially the first Girl Scout meeting was held on March 12, 1912, at the Louisa Porter Home. But planning, recruitment, and informal gatherings were happening all over the city in March 1912. Maybe the best answer to the question “where did Girl Scouts begin” is “Savannah!”
