Juliette Low

Originally Aired: May 8, 1939 Cavalcade of America #164, "Juliette Low," tells the story of the founder of the Girl Scouts of America. The episode begins with young Daisy Gordon at Mademoiselle Charbonnier's select school in New York, where girls are trained to be proper ladies who walk in careful formation and speak only French. Rebellious Daisy leads her classmates on an unauthorized turn onto Fifth Avenue, declaring her frustration with the restrictive education designed to make young women decorative but useless. Years later, after marriage and tragedy leave her widowed and living in the Scottish highlands, Juliette meets Sir Robert Baden-Powell, founder of the Boy Scouts, who challenges her isolated existence and suggests she needs purpose. Inspired by Baden-Powell's manual and moved by the plight of poor Highland girls dying of tuberculosis in Glasgow factories, Juliette discovers her calling. She organizes the local girls into groups, teaching them practical skills like raising chickens and weaving woolens so they can support themselves without leaving home. Energized by this success, Juliette returns to America determined to start a national girls' organization, beginning with the daughters of her Savannah friends and challenging their narrow notions of what it means to be a lady.