Findlay-Campfire, Inc., records

Collection

Identifier: MS-0223

Staff Only

Collection Overview

Abstract

The Findlay-Campfire, Inc., Collection documents the activities and history of the organization from 1913 to 1978. The collection consists of 1.1 cubic feet of records including a scrapbook, membership handbooks, song sheets, photographs, negatives, and glass slides.

Dates

Creation: 1913-1978

Extent

0.46 Cubic Feet (1 legal archives box)

Creator

Camp Fire, Inc. No-We-Oh Council (Findlay, Ohio) (Organization)

Scope and Contents

The Findlay-Campfire, Inc., Collection illustrates aspects of the social development of women in northwest Ohio through their involvement in a popular youth organization. The collection includes a scrapbook kept by a group from the Maumee Valley Camp Fire branch in 1913, three years after the national organization was founded. The book provides information on the function and activities of the group and concerns of its members.

Printed material within the collection includes membership campaign posters, membership handbooks, and song sheets. They are useful to researchers interested in the history of the organization. In addition, these publications are indicators of girls' role, real and perceived, and women in American society in the twentieth century. It is especially enlightening to compare the two handbooks which show the development and modernization of the movement within a forty-eight year time span. Photographic material in the collection similarly documents the members of local Camp Fire groups and their activities.

Biographical / Historical

The Camp Fire Girls movement traces its origins to 1910 when Dr. and Mrs. Luther Halsey Gulick, together with a group of educators, devised a program for girls along the lines of the Boy Scouts. Initially, it was meant to serve the needs of teenagers but grew to include all girls from the ages of seven to eighteen.

In Findlay, the first Camp Fire group was organized in 1923. The year 1929 saw the formation of a Camp Fire Council which directed group activities. Recognizing the need for a building which could be used by the local groups, the Council leased a former one-room schoolhouse east of Findlay in 1936, now officially known as the Camp Fire Girls Cabin. The Council's name was formally changed to No-We-Oh (Northwest Ohio) in 1959.

The Campfire, Inc., is a national organization serving girls of every race, religion, and economic status. It consists of several different age levels: Blue Birds, who are composed of members ranging in age from seven to nine years; Camp Fire Girls, who are ten years through fifteen years of age; and Horizon Club, which is designed for high school members.

Conditions Governing Access

No known access restrictions.

Conditions Governing Use

Researchers using this collection assume full responsibility for conforming to the laws of libel, privacy, and copyright, and are responsible for securing permissions necessary for publication or reproduction.

Language of Materials

English

Additional Description

Immediate Source of Acquisition

These materials were donated to the Center for Archival Collections in March 1982 through the cooperation of Adel Wilfred and Chris Rakestraw, Findlay-Campfire, Inc., and Jill Gates Smith, Field Representative with the Women's Studies Archives Project.