Hey! There's a Girl Scout in that Ad!

Hey! There's a Girl Scout in that Ad!

Undated and unknown magazine ad says "It's easy to be a glamour mother in Acetate fashions."

Saturday Evening Post - 1929

1949 Electric Light and Power Company

1965 - unknown magazine fashion layout, with 3 adult models and 6 Brownies. The ad wants every woman to known that their fashions can go from busy day wear to evening wear.

1968 - This fall fashion layout in an unknown magazine shows models decked out in wool, tweeds and leather. For reasons not clear, they stuck 3 Brownies in the shots, who may or may not have been child models, but they are decidedly without coats or jackets - or even a warm wool blouse.

1959 - Mead Papers, a subsidiary of The Mead Corporation, Dayton, OH

This 1968 ad for Congoleum-Nairn No-Wax vinyl flooring shows Brownies about to walk onto the magnificent Congoleum-Nairn No-Wax vinyl flooring.

This same year the company was bought out and was renamed Congoleum Industries.

Polaroid Color Pack Cameras ran from 1969-1972, so this ad with a Brownie Girl Scout and a Girl Scout leader comes from that era.

Saturday Evening Post - 1956

"Inspired by the historic recipe used in the Birthplace of Juliette Gordon Low, Founder of the Girl Scouts of the United States of America."

Jell-O has enhanced it's ads with scouts through the years, but not by much. The ad on the left with the Cub Scouts is also promoting Minute Maid orange juice and General Foods, Corp. The rarely seen center ad 'After the Hike" shows 3 Girl Scouts in khaki in camp. The isn't anything to identify the image as Girl Scout, it's just that the girls are in khaki. So, I guess that I'm inferring that they are Girl Scouts. The ad on the right is a comic scene of a Boy Scout home from a hike "Now's the time for Jell-O."

Saturday Evening Post - 1956 - the battle between Florida Oranges and California Oranges is almost as old as Coke vs. Pepsi. Here - The Florida Oranges win with using a Girl Scout.

"The next time the troop troops over to your house, be a good scout - have plenty of Florida Orange juice on hand."

Florida Oranges, Florida Citrus Commission, Lakeland, Florida

Sinclair Oil - 1956

Sinclair Oil promotes not only Girl Scouting with this ad, but New Salem State Park in Illinois and also the sense of adventure and freedom that you can only get from hitting the road in your car.

Kudos to Colgate-Palmolive (Peck) Company. For years, from at least 1941 they have been helping the youth groups of America with financial support in their annual campaign. At first it was only for Girl Scouts, Boy Scout, Camp Fire Girls, Boys Clubs of America and Girls Clubs of America, but later they add the 4-H Clubs to their list. In the later years the program was called "Help Young America."

A bit of a snub for Girl Scouting from this ad in Outdoor Life in 1943 for the British company Johnson Sea-Horse. The ad copy tells of how wonderful America's youth movements are; the Boy Scouts, Camp Fire Girls and Y's - but no GS. Oh, well -

A Boy Scout and a Girl Scout are very interested in the brake system of this bike, New Departure Safety Brake. Seems like an odd name - departure means leaving - not stopping.

You're probably familiar with the look of this 1954 John Hancock ad, but did you ever read the copy? Wow...

They made a Promise…

One day you looked up… and there stood your baby girl, straight and serious-faced, in a uniform. And suddenly you realized that she wasn’t your baby girl any more…that you hadn’t played horsie for her in a long time…and you couldn’t remember when you last carried her up the wooden hill to bed.

“I’m a Brownie Scout, Daddy!” she said. “See my pin, and look, this shows I belong to Troop 16, and I made a promise to love God and my Country and to help others, are we’re going to take hikes, and today Miss Alby showed us how to make things with clay, and when I’m ten I’ll get to be a real Girl Scout, and, and, and…”

When she had finally run out of breath you smiled, perhaps too indulgently, made an appropriate remark, and went back to readying your paper.

But that evening you noticed Mother had help carrying the dishes out to the kitchen. And Saturday morning a certain young lady made her bed without being told. And when you’d planned going up to the mountains over Memorial Day weekend, you were informed that it was more important that a Brownie “make bouquets for our soldier boys who got killed.” You had a pang of conscience when it hit you the some of those “soldier boys” were your own buddies from Company B. And you helped with the flowers, too.

And so Girl Scouting had begun to work its own particular wonders in your home, as it has in so many others. You watched its quiet influence through the years. And your respect for it grew. And more than once you gave a mental “thanks” to the tireless people who make such an organization live.

Today in our country there are over a million and a half girls in Scouting. That’s a good thing to know. A good thing to think about when you to wondering about the future. A million and a half girls, keeping a sober promise to love God and their Country and to help other people, can make a big difference in where we go from here.

John Hancock Mutual Life Insurance Company

Boston, Massachusetts

Apparently awestruck by a giant automobile that stopped only inches from the crosswalk, this Cub Scout is lucky

he didn't end up in as a new hood ornament. 1947.

How many Brownies can you cram into 3 Volvos? The answer is 23, plus their camping gear and leaders. That breaks down to 7 girls and 1 adult per car, plus gear - leaving 2 Brownies behind. Really? This ad shows that the leaders of Troop #1900 of Los Angeles could do it. What would Suzy Safety say?

In the early 1950's Monsanto began manufacturing a PVB resin that was layered into windshield glass.

This created a much safer windshield in cars, and other places where glass is used (inside refrigerators, for example).

Called Laminated Safety Glass, it shatters into small pieces instead of long glass shards.

This ad was one of many showing everyday life and how Safety Laminated Glass was an important part of life.

Way back in time, before smart phones, people used to take photos with a separate camera. Cameras took "film" which you had to buy separately.

Shown here are 2 ads from the late 1940's showing 2 Brownies with bicycles and a young bugler in a Boy-Scoutish uniform - but it lacks insignia.

In 1988 Morton Salt Co. sponsored a salt dough art design contest with the Girl Scouts symbolizing the Camp of Tomorrow.

They also promoted the "Girl Scout Camp of Tomorrow."

This camp was dedicated on October 18, 1988 under the name of John J. Creedon Camp of Tomorrow at (surprised?) the Edith Macy Conference Center in New York (heaven forbid GSUSA opens anything on the west coast).

I wonder which troops won?

I think it was 1988 when the military DECA Commissary system launched the

Salute the Girl Scout Sale for a few weeks.

This brochure full of coupons was available in every commissary.

1981 ad for Benjamin Moore Paints. The copy reads:

The Girl Scout Council of the St. Croix Valley in St. Paul, Minnesota is housed in this unusual contemporary structure. Designed "with and for the environment" it features solar heating, a wind turbine generator, compost waster system and interior foliage designed to provide humidity and oxygen. Moorwood Semi-Transparent Stain and Wood Preservative provided the perfect finish for this ecology-minded project.

Here's a Girl Scout ad you don't see everyday. The Asphalt Industry wishing the Girl Scouts a happy 45th birthday and to enjoy a safe, smooth trip on the roadway.

March 1957

The copy reads: The Girl Scout lodge in Washington County, Pennsylvania,is a working example of how Armco Steel Buildings combine beauty and utility.

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