Juliette Gordon Low
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40 free Juliette Gordon Low trivia questions with answers — history quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
Juliette Gordon Low was fifty-one, widowed and nearly deaf when she gathered a small group of girls in Savannah, Georgia, in 1912 and started what became the Girl Scouts of the USA. She had spent half her adult life in Britain, and she put her own money, her connections and her considerable stubbornness into the movement until her death in 1927. This quiz follows her whole story: a Civil War childhood, an unhappy marriage, the meeting that changed her life, the first troops and headquarters, the well-known names she recruited, and the tributes paid to her long after she was gone. Along the way are the odd details that made her a legend among scouts, from her party tricks to her patents. It is written for Girl Scouts and troop leaders getting ready for Founder's Day, for teachers, and for anyone curious about one of the most unconventional women in American history. Every answer comes with a short explanation.
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Q 01Juliette Gordon Low's birthday, kept by Girl Scouts as Founder's Day, falls on which holiday?
Halloween
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.
Q 02What did Juliette Gordon Low sell to help pay the bills of the young Girl Scouts?
Her pearls
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.
Q 03How did Juliette Gordon Low famously show off the new Girl Scout shoes at national headquarters?
Stood on her head
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.
Q 04What landed in Juliette Gordon Low's ear at her 1886 wedding and cost her the hearing on that side?
A grain of rice
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.
Q 05Which founder of the Boy Scouts inspired Juliette Gordon Low's life's work after they met in 1911?
Robert Baden-Powell
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.
Q 06What was Juliette Gordon Low dressed in for her burial in Savannah in 1927, at her own request?
Her Girl Scout uniform
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.
Q 07Which US coin featured Juliette Gordon Low in 2025, closing a series honoring American women?
Quarter
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.
Q 08Who was left most of William Mackay Low's fortune, forcing Juliette Gordon Low to contest his will?
His mistress
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.
Q 09Juliette Gordon Low's mother, Nellie Kinzie, came from a family that helped found which US city?
Chicago
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.
Q 10From what did Juliette Gordon Low drop Girl Scout pamphlets onto a New York fundraising crowd?
An airplane
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.
Q 11Which flower nickname did an uncle give the infant Juliette Gordon Low, one she used all her life?
Daisy
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.
Q 12Which illness did Juliette Gordon Low hide from friends and family in her final Girl Scout years?
Breast cancer
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.
Q 13Which Union general visited Juliette Gordon Low's family in Savannah as a friend of her uncle?
William T. Sherman
Q 21Where did Juliette Gordon Low open the Girl Scouts' first national office, later moved to New York?
Washington, D.C.
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.
Q 22What kind of vessel did the United States launch in 1944 under the name SS Juliette Low?
A Liberty ship
A Liberty ship, one of the mass-produced cargo carriers of World War II, took her name to sea seventeen years after her death.
Q 23Juliette Gordon Low's birthplace was the first site in Savannah to earn which federal designation?
National Historic Landmark
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.
Q 14Which president gave Juliette Gordon Low the Medal of Freedom for the Girl Scout centennial?
Barack Obama
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.
Q 15Which 1948 tribute to Juliette Gordon Low took a joint resolution of Congress to produce?
A postage stamp
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.
Q 16In which country did Juliette Gordon Low form her first Girl Guide patrol, before any US troop?
Scotland
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.
Q 17Which Girl Scout emblem did Juliette Gordon Low design and patent, to a Boy Scout chief's dismay?
The trefoil
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.
Q 18What kind of outbuilding did Juliette Gordon Low turn into the first Girl Scout headquarters?
A carriage house
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.
Q 19How was Margaret Gordon, the first girl registered in 1912, related to Juliette Gordon Low?
Her niece
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.
Q 20Which famous inventor's wife did Juliette Gordon Low recruit as an early Girl Scout patron?
Thomas Edison
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.
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.
Q 24Juliette Gordon Low's grandfather, a mayor of Savannah, founded what kind of Georgia company?
A railroad
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.
Q 25Which British writer, tied by marriage to Juliette Gordon Low's mother, visited the Lows in England?
Rudyard Kipling
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.
Q 26Which future British king was a friend of Juliette Gordon Low's husband and a guest at their home?
Edward VII
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.
Q 27Juliette Gordon Low held a US patent for a liquid container made for use with which household item?
Garbage cans
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.
Q 28Which metal was in the experimental cure Juliette Gordon Low tried in Liverpool late in her life?
Lead
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.
Q 29What did Juliette Gordon Low design and build herself for her home in Warwickshire, England?
Iron gates
Iron gates were the showpiece of the metalworking she learned alongside woodworking. She had studied painting in New York as a young woman.
Q 30Early in World War I, Juliette Gordon Low housed a refugee family from which country in a castle?
Belgium
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.