Finding “Hidden Heroines”: Girls’ Organizations, Public History, and the 1976 American Bicentennial

This article explores girls’ participation in 1976 American Revolution Bicentennial celebrations through their national organizations. Members of the Girl Scouts and the Camp Fire Girls were deeply involved in the nation’s displays of civic pride. Girls’ organizations linked their ordinary service projects to the Bicentennial and created new projects as they caught the national bandwagon. To some extent, these efforts emphasized unquestioning patriotism, but each organization, propelled by second-wave feminism and social history, also absorbed and advanced efforts to recover multiple perspectives. Girls’ organizations became public history spaces and girls in them saw the understanding of and dissemination of history as an important part of female citizenship.