40 Fun Facts About Juliette Gordon Low

Juliette Gordon Low's birthday, kept by Girl Scouts as Founder's Day, falls on which holiday?

Halloween doubles as Founder's Day because Low was born on October 31, 1860. Girl Scouts first marked the date in her honor in 1920, while she was still alive to enjoy it.

What did Juliette Gordon Low sell to help pay the bills of the young Girl Scouts?

Her pearls went the way of much of her fortune: Low paid most Girl Scout expenses herself in the early years, even after recruiting wealthy patrons.

How did Juliette Gordon Low famously show off the new Girl Scout shoes at national headquarters?

Low stood on her head, a favorite skill since her athletic childhood. Tradition holds that she repeated the trick every birthday to prove she could keep up with the girls.

What landed in Juliette Gordon Low's ear at her 1886 wedding and cost her the hearing on that side?

A grain of rice thrown by well-wishers caused an infection, and removing it punctured her eardrum. Her other ear had already been damaged by a harsh treatment the year before.

Which founder of the Boy Scouts inspired Juliette Gordon Low's life's work after they met in 1911?

Robert Baden-Powell became a firm friend, and the two happened to sail on the same ship in 1912 when Low headed home to Savannah to start her first American troops.

What was Juliette Gordon Low dressed in for her burial in Savannah in 1927, at her own request?

Her Girl Scout uniform had a telegram from the national officers tucked in its pocket, telling her she was not only the first of their number but the best of them all.

Which US coin featured Juliette Gordon Low in 2025, closing a series honoring American women?

The quarter shows Low beside the original Girl Scout emblem, which she designed herself. Journalist Ida B. Wells was honored in the same final set.

Who was left most of William Mackay Low's fortune, forcing Juliette Gordon Low to contest his will?

His mistress, a widow named Anna Bateman, was the main heir when he died with the divorce unfinished. The challenge won Low the Savannah house and a settlement that left her wealthy.

Juliette Gordon Low's mother, Nellie Kinzie, came from a family that helped found which US city?

Chicago took in the four-year-old Low with her mother and sisters in 1865, after the Civil War drove them out of Savannah. She fell ill with brain fever there but recovered.

From what did Juliette Gordon Low drop Girl Scout pamphlets onto a New York fundraising crowd?

An airplane took Low over the city during Girl Scout Week, after she had already stepped down as president. The same week brought the first Founder's Day in her honor.

Which flower nickname did an uncle give the infant Juliette Gordon Low, one she used all her life?

Daisy was a common pet name at the time. Her relatives later stretched it to "Crazy Daisy" because nobody could predict what she would do next.

Which illness did Juliette Gordon Low hide from friends and family in her final Girl Scout years?

Breast cancer was diagnosed in 1923, yet she kept working, even slipping away from a surgical recovery to give a speech at a regional conference in Richmond, Virginia.

Which Union general visited Juliette Gordon Low's family in Savannah as a friend of her uncle?

William T. Sherman called on the Gordons many times after taking the city in 1864, although her father was away fighting for the other side. He arranged the escort that carried the family north.

Which president gave Juliette Gordon Low the Medal of Freedom for the Girl Scout centennial?

Barack Obama awarded the highest civilian honor in the United States posthumously in 2012, a century after her first troop met, and praised her remarkable vision.

Which 1948 tribute to Juliette Gordon Low took a joint resolution of Congress to produce?

A postage stamp honoring a civic organization went against Post Office policy, so Congress and Harry Truman had to step in. More than 63 million of the three-cent stamps were printed.

In which country did Juliette Gordon Low form her first Girl Guide patrol, before any US troop?

Scotland was her summer retreat, and she taught the girls of a remote glen to spin wool and care for livestock so that they could be self-sufficient.

Which Girl Scout emblem did Juliette Gordon Low design and patent, to a Boy Scout chief's dismay?

The trefoil badge earned her a design patent, though James E. West insisted the symbol belonged to his organization and that her girls had no right to use it.

What kind of outbuilding did Juliette Gordon Low turn into the first Girl Scout headquarters?

A carriage house behind her home held the meeting rooms, while the lot outside was used for drills and basketball. Low left the building to the local Girl Scouts when she died.

How was Margaret Gordon, the first girl registered in 1912, related to Juliette Gordon Low?

Her niece and namesake was first on the list of 18 girls registered on March 12, 1912. Many of the others also came from Low's relatives and from long-established Savannah families.

Which famous inventor's wife did Juliette Gordon Low recruit as an early Girl Scout patron?

Thomas Edison's wife Mina joined a list of prominent patrons that Low built through family connections, hoping to prove hers was the true sister movement to the Boy Scouts.

Where did Juliette Gordon Low open the Girl Scouts' first national office, later moved to New York?

Washington, D.C., showed that the movement reached beyond Georgia. The office, run by her friend Edith Johnston, sold badges and copies of the newly published handbook.

What kind of vessel did the United States launch in 1944 under the name SS Juliette Low?

A Liberty ship, one of the mass-produced cargo carriers of World War II, took her name to sea seventeen years after her death.

Juliette Gordon Low's birthplace was the first site in Savannah to earn which federal designation?

National Historic Landmark status came in 1965, twelve years after the Girl Scouts bought the run-down house. It opened as a museum that displays Gordon family furnishings and Low's own art.

Juliette Gordon Low's grandfather, a mayor of Savannah, founded what kind of Georgia company?

A railroad, later the Central of Georgia, made his name. He was also the first Georgian to graduate from West Point, and a Georgia county is named after him.

Which British writer, tied by marriage to Juliette Gordon Low's mother, visited the Lows in England?

Rudyard Kipling's wife was the relative, and Low was a busy hostess who held parties and events at the couple's house in Warwickshire.

Which future British king was a friend of Juliette Gordon Low's husband and a guest at their home?

Edward VII was still Albert Edward, Prince of Wales, when he visited. Low herself was presented at court and took easily to the life of the English gentry.

Juliette Gordon Low held a US patent for a liquid container made for use with which household item?

Garbage cans were the unlikely subject of her utility patent. It was one of two patents she held, the other covering the design of a Girl Scout badge.

Which metal was in the experimental cure Juliette Gordon Low tried in Liverpool late in her life?

Lead in a colloidal solution, a therapy a Liverpool doctor was developing, did not help. She spent her 66th birthday fighting off poisoning from the treatment.

What did Juliette Gordon Low design and build herself for her home in Warwickshire, England?

Iron gates were the showpiece of the metalworking she learned alongside woodworking. She had studied painting in New York as a young woman.

Early in World War I, Juliette Gordon Low housed a refugee family from which country in a castle?

Belgium had just been invaded, and Low let the family live for a time in a castle she had rented. She later opened a home in England for relatives of wounded soldiers.

Juliette Gordon Low was inducted in 1979 into which institution based in Seneca Falls, New York?

The National Women's Hall of Fame inducted her in the same class as reformer Dorothea Dix and suffragist Alice Paul, more than fifty years after her death.

Which disease's 1876 epidemic in Savannah sent the teenage Juliette Gordon Low out of the city?

Yellow fever kept her father in the city caring for the sick while the children were sent away. She alone had insisted on leaving, telling her mother she had no wish to die there.

Juliette Gordon Low's father, once a Confederate captain, was later a US general in which conflict?

The Spanish–American War also drew in his daughter, who came back from England to help her mother run a convalescent hospital for soldiers in Florida.

Which future First Lady did Juliette Gordon Low recruit as the Girl Scouts' national vice president?

Lou Henry Hoover signed on in 1917, the same year that Edith Wilson, then living in the White House, agreed to serve as the organization's honorary president.

Which rival group turned down Juliette Gordon Low's 1912 invitation to merge with her movement?

Camp Fire Girls were the bigger and faster-growing group at the time. They said no even after the founder of the Boy Scouts in Britain urged them to think again.

Juliette Gordon Low's birthplace was built for James Moore Wayne, later a member of which body?

The US Supreme Court was Wayne's final post after a spell in Congress. He sold the Savannah house to Low's grandparents, the first of four generations of Gordons to live there.

Which US president's daughter Helen did Juliette Gordon Low try in vain to recruit as a patron?

William H. Taft was due to visit her Savannah home, so Low came back from a recruiting trip along the East Coast to make her case in person.

What was the title of the first handbook Juliette Gordon Low issued for her movement in 1913?

How Girls Can Help Their Country was a lightly amended version of the British manual, whose own title spoke of helping to build up the Empire.

Which British honor, the highest in Girl Guiding, did Juliette Gordon Low receive in 1919?

The Silver Fish was presented by Olave, the Chief Guide, and Low is one of the few Americans ever to have been awarded it.

In which Savannah cemetery was Juliette Gordon Low buried beside her parents?

Laurel Grove received her after an honor guard of Girl Scouts escorted the casket to the service. Some 250 scouts left school early that day to attend.