Juliette Gordon Low

>  **"To be inspired is great, but to be an inspiration is an honor."**
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-Juliette Gordon Low, Girl Scouts of Central Maryland on X

Juliette Gordon Low in 1923

**Juliette Gordon Low** (née **Gordon**; October 31, 1860 – January 17, 1927) was the American founder of Girl Scouts of the USA. Inspired by the work of Lord Baden-Powell, founder of Scout Movement, she joined the Girl Guide movement in England, forming her own group of Girl Guides there in 1911.

In 1912 she returned to the States, and the same year established the first U.S. Girl Guide troop in Savannah, Georgia. In 1915, the United States' Girl Guides became known as the Girl Scouts, and Juliette Gordon Low was the first ever leader. She remained active until the time of her death.

Her birthday, October 31, is celebrated each year by the Girl Scouts as "Founder's Day".

## Early life

Juliette Magill Kinzie Gordon was born on October 31, 1860, in Savannah, Georgia in the United States. She was named after her grandmother, Juliette Augusta Magill Kinzie, and nicknamed Daisy, a common sobriquet at the time, by her uncle. She was the second of six children born to William Washington Gordon II, a cotton broker with the firm Tison & Gordon, which was later renamed to W. W. Gordon & Company, and Eleanor "Nellie" Lytle Kinzie, a writer whose family played a role in the founding of Chicago.

When she was six months old, her father joined the Confederate States Army to fight in the American Civil War. In 1864, due to the close proximity of Union troops to Savannah, she moved with her mother and two sisters to Thunderbolt, Georgia. After the Union victory in Savannah the same year, her family received many visits from General William T. Sherman, who was a friend of her uncle. Sherman arranged an escort to take her family to Chicago in March 1865. Upon arriving in Chicago, Gordon Low became sick with brain fever, although she recovered without severe complications. A few months later, after President Andrew Johnson issued the amnesty proclamation, her father reunited with the family to move back to Savannah.

As a young child, she was accident-prone and had numerous injuries and illnesses. In 1866, her mother mentioned in a letter that "Daisy fell out of bed – on her head, as usual...." That same year, she broke two of her fingers so severely that her parents considered having them amputated. She also had frequent earaches and recurring bouts of malaria.

Juliette developed partial hearing loss as a child before becoming deaf in both ears due to an untreated infection and a small grain of rice.

### Hobbies

As a child, she spent more time on art and poetry than on school work. In addition to writing and performing plays, she started a newspaper with her cousins, called *The Malbone Bouquet*, which featured some of her early poetry. She also formed The Helpful Hands Club with her cousins, with the goal of helping others. The members learned to sew and tried to make clothes for the children of Italian immigrants. She was dubbed "Crazy Daisy" by her family and friends, due to her eccentricities. As her cousin Caroline described her, "While you never knew what she would do next, she always did what she made up her mind to do."

### Education

Juliette's parents raised her with traditional Southern values, emphasizing the importance of duty, obedience, loyalty, and respect. By the age of 12, she had begun boarding school, attending several different ones during her teen years, including Miss Emmett's School in New Jersey, the Virginia Female Institute, the Edgehill School, and Mesdemoiselles Charbonniers, a French finishing school in New York. While studying at Edgehill, she joined the secret group Theta Tau (based on the sorority of the same name), whose members held meetings and earned badges. In 1880, after finishing boarding school, Juliette took painting lessons in New York, with teachers including Robert Walter Weir, a prominent landscape painter.

## References

1. ↑ 1.00 1.01 1.02 1.03 1.04 1.05 1.06 1.07 1.08 1.09 1.10 1.11 1.12 1.13 Cordery, Stacy A (2012). Juliette Gordon Low: The Remarkable Founder of the Girl Scouts.
2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 2.5 2.6 Shultz, Gladys Denny; Lawrence, Daisy Gordon (1988). Lady from Savannah: The Life of Juliette Low. New York: Girl Scouts of the USA.
3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 Juliette Gordon Low Biography. Girl Scouts of USA (2015).
4. ↑ Kehe, Marjorie. That 'Crazy Daisy' who started the Girl Scouts. Christian Science Monitor.