The Boy Scouts of America is incorporated
On this day · 8 February 1910
On a single Washington morning, an American publisher chartered a youth movement borrowed from Britain.
On February 8, 1910, publisher William D. Boyce filed the papers that incorporated the Boy Scouts of America under the laws of the District of Columbia. The documents were stamped at 11:03 a.m., and Scouts have marked February 8 as their American birthday ever since.
The idea crossed the Atlantic with a story Boyce liked to tell: lost in a London fog, he was guided to his destination by a boy who refused a tip, explaining he was a Scout doing his good turn. The encounter pointed Boyce toward Robert Baden-Powell’s booming British scouting movement, which he resolved to bring home.
One anonymous good deed, the legend goes, launched an organization of millions.
The new body absorbed several existing American outdoor groups and built a program of camping, woodcraft, and civic duty. Within a decade it had become one of the country’s largest youth organizations, and it has since enrolled well over 100 million members.
Sources & references
2 referencesWell-established. Corroborated by 2 independent sources.
