In 1910, young girls in Thetford, Vermont watched their brothers, friends, and schoolmates—all Boy Scouts—practice their parts in the community's 150th anniversary, which would be celebrated the following summer. The pageant's organizer, William Chauncey Langdon, promised the girls that they too would have an organized role in the pageant, although no organization similar to the Boy Scouts existed for girls at the time. Langdon consulted with Charlotte Joy Farnsworth, known as “Madama” [of Camp Hanoum]. Both approached Luther Halsey Gulick M.D. about creating a national organization for girls... After many discussions and help from Gulick and his wife Charlotte, Langdon named the group of Thetford girls the Camp Fire Girls.

This was not the Luther Halsey Gulick who taught at Springfield College and assigned his class to devise an indoor game for city kids to play, resulting in the invention of basketball—that was his nephew. Growing up in Lexington Massachusetts, my backyard neighbor was Bob Gulick, whose grandfather was Luther’s (I think the Camp Fire one’s) cousin.