Intrepid Girls - (A Ferris and Ferris Book) by Amy Erdman Farrell (Hardcover)

About the Book

"When eight-year-old Amy Erdman Farrell moved with her family to Akron, Ohio, in 1972, she found herself adrift in a sea of taunting boys and mean girls. Shy by nature, she dreaded her long, unhappy days at school. But a few years later, Farrell found an escape from bullying, the promise of sisterhood, a rising sense of confidence, adventure, and - best of all - lifelong friendship when she joined a Girl Scout troop. Decades later, award-winning author Farrell returns to those formative experiences to explore the complicated and surprising history of the Girl Scouts of the USA. Drawing from extensive archival research, visits to iconic Girl Scout sites around the world, and vivid personal reflections, Farrell uncovers the Girl Scouts intricate history, revealing how the organization has shaped the lives of more than 50 million girls and women since its founding in 1912. With Farrell as our own intrepid guide, we travel to American Indian boarding schools, Japanese American incarceration centers, segregated African American communities, middle-class white neighborhoods, and outposts throughout the globe. Intrepid Girls unpacks how the Girl Scouts navigated tensions over feminism, race, class, and political differences, carving out extraordinary opportunities for girls and women - even as it participated in the very discrimination it promised to transcend. For anyone who has ever worn a uniform or wondered about the hidden history behind this iconic American institution, Intrepid Girls will surprise, inspire, and challenge what we think we know about the Girl Scouts"--

Book Synopsis

When eight-year-old Amy Erdman Farrell moved with her family to Akron, Ohio, in 1972, she found herself adrift in a sea of taunting boys and mean girls. Shy by nature, she dreaded her long, unhappy days at school. But a few years later, Farrell found an escape from bullying, the promise of sisterhood, a rising sense of confidence, adventure, and--best of all--lifelong friendship when she joined a Girl Scout troop. Decades later, award-winning author Farrell returns to those formative experiences to explore the complicated and surprising history of the Girl Scouts of the USA.

Drawing from extensive archival research, visits to iconic Girl Scout sites around the world, and vivid personal reflections, Farrell uncovers the Girl Scouts intricate history, revealing how the organization has shaped the lives of more than 50 million girls and women since its founding in 1912. With Farrell as our own intrepid guide, we travel to American Indian boarding schools, Japanese American incarceration centers, segregated African American communities, middle-class white neighborhoods, and outposts throughout the globe. Intrepid Girls unpacks how the Girl Scouts navigated tensions over feminism, race, class, and political differences, carving out extraordinary opportunities for girls and women--even as it participated in the very discrimination it promised to transcend.

For anyone who has ever worn a uniform or wondered about the hidden history behind this iconic American institution, Intrepid Girls will surprise, inspire, and challenge what we think we know about the Girl Scouts.

Review Quotes

"[A] tribute to the Girl Scouts that probes the organization's controversies as well as its successes. . . . [Farrell's] research tackles uncomfortable truths . . . [and] contains copious historical tidbits that will intrigue Girl Scouts aficionados."--Publishers Weekly

"Amy Erdman Farrell's comprehensive and insightful history offers an appreciative account of the ways in which the Girl Scouts offered girls and women opportunities for empowerment, adventure, friendship, and community. Her analysis also examines how, for all of its progressive and inclusive intentions, the Girl Scouts of the USA perpetuated and reinforced racial, class, colonial, and imperialist hierarchies. This lively and engaging book will appeal to all readers, whether or not they engaged in scouting, or ever enjoyed a Girl Scout cookie."-- Elaine Tyler May, author of Homeward Bound: American Families in the Cold War Era

"Amy Farrell's expansive and insightful study of the Girl Scouts proves that you can love an institution that was formative in your life and still bring a critical eye to what is largely invisible in that institution, in this case racism, white supremacy and privilege, sexism, and vestiges of imperial colonialism. I cannot imagine a better book about the iconic Girl Scouts, not just for women who loved their Girl Scout experiences but also for the rest of us." -- Jay Mechling, author of On My Honor: Boy Scouts and the Making of American Youth

"As someone who writes about US girls' organizations, I wish that Farrell's findings would have been available when I was writing my book! Rich, detailed, and multifaceted, Farrell's work captures complex ideas in succinct, accessible prose."--Jennifer Helgren, author of The Camp Fire Girls: Gender, Race, and American Girlhood, 1910-1980

"This eye-opening account is the first comprehensive history of the Girl Scouts from [the organizations] inception in the 1910s to the early twenty-first century. The scant attention paid to an organization that has offered extracurricular activities to more than 50 million American girls is hard to explain and even harder to accept. The stakes are high, and this book blends analysis and autobiographical reflection in an exemplary manner."--Mischa Honeck, author of Our Frontier Is the World: The Boy Scouts in the Age of American Ascendancy

About the Author

Amy Erdman Farrell is professor of American studies and women's, gender, and sexuality studies and the James Hope Caldwell Memorial Chair of American Culture at Dickinson College.