Wednesday, May 20, 2009

Good Clean Fun For Boys






July 3, 1913. "Fun at camp." Boy Scouts in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania.


Washington, D.C. "Boy Scout training demonstration, 1912."


"Boy Scout training demonstration, Washington, 1912."




"Boy Scout training demonstration, 1912."


"Boy Scout Training demonstration, 1912."


"At Camp Tobin - July 19, 1914"


June 16, 1937. "Walk 800 miles to attend Boy Scout Jamboree. Two Venezuelan Boy Scouts, Rafael Angel Petit, left, and Juan Carmona, examining their boots after tramping 25 miles a day for two years in order to attend the Boy Scout Jamboree in Washington. They left Caracas Jan. 11, 1935, arriving in Washington today."


[All b&w pics courtesy of Shorpy.]

9 comments:

Mel said...

I was a Boy Scout, you know.

John C said...

By coincidence, I was reading some stories last night by Saki (HH Munro), a writer who rarely missed an opportunity to drop in a stray reference to naked young men. "The Lull" last night was a peach and the reference to Henry Scott Tuke's paintings tips the wink to knowing readers:

(Latimer is a house guest who's been told that a sudden flood requires barnyard animals be placed for safekeeping in his bedroom.)

"Couldn't the pig go in the bathroom?" asked Latimer faintly, wishing that he had taken up as determined a stand on the subject of bedroom swine as the chow had.

"The bathroom?" Vera laughed shrilly. "It'll be full of Boy Scouts till morning if the hot water holds out."

"Boy Scouts?"

"Yes, thirty of them came to rescue us while the water was only waist-high; then it rose another three feet or so and we had to rescue them. We're giving them hot baths in batches and drying their clothes in the hotair cupboard, but, of course, drenched clothes don't dry in a minute, and the corridor and staircase are beginning to look like a bit of coast scenery by Tuke. Two of the boys are wearing your Melton overcoat; I hope you don't mind."

"It's a new overcoat," said Latimer, with every indication of minding dreadfully.

The Other Andrew said...

Mel, I was a Cub... and now I find myself in the same place many years later! Just more Bear Cub that Cub Scout...

John, you gobsmack me sometimes. I mean that in an adulation, I could fall to my knees right now, kind of way.

John C said...

Heehee. I highly recommend Saki, Penguin do a great collection of all the books in one volume. He's like PG Wodehouse with the addition of biting vitriol and a very queer eye on the proceedings.

Mindy said...

Looking at the dates of those photos I realised that many of those young men probably went off to war a few years later.

The Other Andrew said...

Yes, in fact wasn't that part of Baden-Powell's master plan? To have a quasi-millitary force of young men at the ready?

Ur-spo said...

when i was in the scouts, i longed for our scoutmaster to do all of these things, but alas it never happened.

Cozalcoatl said...

I want those boots from the last pic....

Anonymous said...

CSERKESZ FOR THE WIN!