In celebration of the 100th birthday of Boy Scouts of America, several important people will be featured throughout the month on the blog. Please share these short biographies with your family.
Perhaps the most important person for Boy Scouts of America, William D. Boyce was a Progressive-era Chicago businessman and world- wide explorer. Paralleling Theodore Roosevelt in many activities, during his lifetime Boyce attained international prominence ---"a man with friends in almost every civilized country." His sustaining legacy, also a reflection of Roosevelt's interests and concern for children, was bringing the concept of Boy Scouting to the United States and combining it with youth programs established by the YMCA and other organizations.
You might know him through the legend of the unknown Scout. According to legend, Boyce was lost on a foggy street in London in 1909 when an unknown Scout came to his aid, guiding him back to his destination. The boy then refused Boyce's tip, explaining that he was merely doing his duty as a Boy Scout. Soon thereafter, Boyce met with Robert Baden-Powell, who was the head of the Boy Scout Association at that time. Boyce returned to America, and, four months later, founded the Boy Scouts of America on February 8, 1910. He intended to base the program around American Indian lore. This version of the legend has been printed in numerous BSA handbooks and magazines. There are several variations of it, including ones that claim Boyce knew about Scouting before this encounter and that the Unknown Scout took him to Scout headquarters.
In actuality, Boyce stopped in London en route to a safari in British East Africa. It is true that an unknown Scout helped him and refused a tip. But this Scout only helped him cross a street to a hotel; he did not take him to the Scout headquarters and Boyce never met Baden-Powell. Upon Boyce's request, the unknown Scout did give him the address of the Scout headquarters, where Boyce went and picked up a copy of Scouting For Boys and other printed material on Scouting. He read this while on safari and was so impressed that instead of making his return to America an around-the-world trip via San Francisco, he returned to the Scout headquarters in London. He volunteered to organize Scouting in America and was told that he could use their manual. While Boyce's original account does not mention the fog, a 1928 account recounts that he did say there was fog. Climatologists report no fog on that day in London
Born to a Pennsylvania farm family, Boyce's monetary successes were as a Chicago newspaper publisher. Between 1887 and the early 1930s, his periodicals were read by millions of subscribers in rural and small-town America.
A lifelong adventurer, Boyce made extensive trips to all parts of the world. During World War One, he traveled to Europe on the British luxury liner Lusitania (three months before it was torpedoed by a German submarine).He made two African safaris and spent nearly a year traversing South America. Sending detailed reports of those foreign experiences as articles for his newspapers, the stories were later reprinted in books published by Rand McNally & Company.
Among the last hugely successful turn-of-the-century entrepreneurs, Boyce amassed a fortune valued in 1916 at $20 million (approximately $328 million in 2003 value). Perhaps because his death in 1929 occurred on the brink of the Great Depression--a time of vast economic and political change, W. D. Boyce has been virtually forgotten in American history. Yet his accomplishments were many, and his lasting gift is the Scouting program he initiated in 1910 and helped finance through the early years, a program that today serves more than four million American boys.
You might know him through the legend of the unknown Scout. According to legend, Boyce was lost on a foggy street in London in 1909 when an unknown Scout came to his aid, guiding him back to his destination. The boy then refused Boyce's tip, explaining that he was merely doing his duty as a Boy Scout. Soon thereafter, Boyce met with Robert Baden-Powell, who was the head of the Boy Scout Association at that time. Boyce returned to America, and, four months later, founded the Boy Scouts of America on February 8, 1910. He intended to base the program around American Indian lore. This version of the legend has been printed in numerous BSA handbooks and magazines. There are several variations of it, including ones that claim Boyce knew about Scouting before this encounter and that the Unknown Scout took him to Scout headquarters.
In actuality, Boyce stopped in London en route to a safari in British East Africa. It is true that an unknown Scout helped him and refused a tip. But this Scout only helped him cross a street to a hotel; he did not take him to the Scout headquarters and Boyce never met Baden-Powell. Upon Boyce's request, the unknown Scout did give him the address of the Scout headquarters, where Boyce went and picked up a copy of Scouting For Boys and other printed material on Scouting. He read this while on safari and was so impressed that instead of making his return to America an around-the-world trip via San Francisco, he returned to the Scout headquarters in London. He volunteered to organize Scouting in America and was told that he could use their manual. While Boyce's original account does not mention the fog, a 1928 account recounts that he did say there was fog. Climatologists report no fog on that day in London
Born to a Pennsylvania farm family, Boyce's monetary successes were as a Chicago newspaper publisher. Between 1887 and the early 1930s, his periodicals were read by millions of subscribers in rural and small-town America.
A lifelong adventurer, Boyce made extensive trips to all parts of the world. During World War One, he traveled to Europe on the British luxury liner Lusitania (three months before it was torpedoed by a German submarine).He made two African safaris and spent nearly a year traversing South America. Sending detailed reports of those foreign experiences as articles for his newspapers, the stories were later reprinted in books published by Rand McNally & Company.
Among the last hugely successful turn-of-the-century entrepreneurs, Boyce amassed a fortune valued in 1916 at $20 million (approximately $328 million in 2003 value). Perhaps because his death in 1929 occurred on the brink of the Great Depression--a time of vast economic and political change, W. D. Boyce has been virtually forgotten in American history. Yet his accomplishments were many, and his lasting gift is the Scouting program he initiated in 1910 and helped finance through the early years, a program that today serves more than four million American boys.
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