By Rachel Duncan

After an exhausting 9-5 workday, you see an enticing little booth arranged artfully with colored cardboard boxes and sizable signs that read, “Girl Scout Cookies!” Immediately, you whip your car into the local middle school carpool loop, eager to take part in this annual phenomenon. You walk up to the booth and are greeted by three to five buoyant nine-year-olds. To your surprise, you discover that new flavors and names have been unlocked from last year’s line-up, including new vegan and gluten-free options. The daunting “5$ a box” quickens your heart rate, but gluttony takes hold. You shamefully walk back to the car after having spent $90 on cookies but justify it by repeating “I deserved this,” “only once a year,” and “it’s for a good cause.”

Throughout elementary and middle school, I was the excited Girl Scout proudly standing behind the booth. Now, I am the anxious customer trying to have the self-discipline to not spend all the money in my savings on tantalizing Samoas and Thin Mints.

Juliette Gordon Low at the 1923 Girl Scout Convention in Washington D.C. Photo credit: Underwood and Underwood, New York via Wikimedia Commons.

The Girl Scouts organization was started in 1912 in Savannah, Georgia by Juliette Gordon Low, or “Daisy.” At this time in America, women were denied the right to vote and constricted by the stereotypes that encircled them. The Girl Scouts’ website describes that, at this time, “encouraging girls to embrace their unique strengths and create their own opportunities was game-changing.” According to the site, Low “ignited a movement across America where every girl could unlock their full potential, find lifelong friends, and make the world a better place.”

It wasn’t until 1917 that the first cookie was sold by the Mistletoe Troop in Muskogee, Oklahoma. The girls in the troop home-baked the cookies and sold them in the school cafeteria to finance troop activities. This would unofficially launch the tradition of Girls Scout cookie sales. 

In July 1922, Florence E. Neil published a universal cookie recipe in the Girl Scouts’ The American Girl Magazine. The recipe yielded approximately six to seven dozen sugar cookies, and the cost would range from 26 to 35 cents. In her article to the Chicago council’s 2,000 Girl Scouts, she suggested that each dozen be sold for 25-30 cents. This began a council-wide ritual where girls, with the help of their parents, made, packaged, sealed, and sold door-to-door simple sugar cookies for 25 to 35 cents a dozen. 

The Original Girl Scouts Cookie Recipe from 1922: 

• 1 cup of butter or substitute 
• 1 cup of sugar 
• 2 tablespoons of milk 
• 2 eggs 
• 1 teaspoon of vanilla 
• 2 cups of flour 
• 2 teaspoons of baking powder 

Cream butter and sugar; add well beaten eggs, then milk, flavoring, flour, and baking powder. Roll thin and bake in a quick oven. (Sprinkle sugar on top.)

In the 1930s, Greater Philadelphia became the first Girl Scout council to sell commercially-baked cookies. Their cookies were sold in the windows of the city’s gas and electric company for 25 cents per box of 44 cookies. Eventually, the national Girl Scout organization would begin its efforts to license the first commercial bakers to sell the cookies nationwide. 

Throughout the 1950s, different varieties of cookies were introduced, including the sandwich, shortbread, chocolate mints, a vanilla-based filled cookie, and a chocolate-based filled one. As suburban communities flourished, girls began setting up cookie booths in neighborhoods, malls, and other populated attractions. In the 1970s, American graphic designer Saul Bass redesigned the Girl Scout logo to incorporate three stylized face contours, which symbolized diversity within the organization. 

Today, there are 112 councils across the country that each set the cookie price for their troops under them. Each year approximately 200 million boxes are sold, with 100% of the revenue staying with the specific council and its troops. The 2023-2024 Girl Scouts Cookie line-up includes: Adventurefuls, Lemon-ups, Trefoils, Do-si-dos, Samoas, Tagalongs, Thin Mints (vegan), Girl Scout S’mores, and Toffee-tastics (gluten-free).

A young Cougar proudly setting up a cookie booth at a local Walmart. Photo courtesy of Olivia D’Ambrosia.

Current Collegiate Senior Olivia D’Ambrosia (‘24), has been a Girl Scout for 13 years. She recounted, “I started in preschool. When I was younger, cookie season was more fun. It was like a competition between me and my troop mates. Thinking back on it now, it’s unbelievable how intensely into it I was.” She mentions how now with online ordering, the excitement and competitive nature of selling cookies has faded.

Another fellow classmate, Kimber Reeves (‘24), started Girl Scouts in Kindergarten. She remarked, “The main reason I chose to be a Girl Scout is because it allowed me to become friends with people I didn’t know. I liked that I could get to know my peers while serving our community!” She expressed her love for cookie season and explained how “it lets young girls learn entrepreneurship.” Reeves affirmed that the dynamic of cookie selling has changed due to the internet and that it has now “taken away from the experience, as it doesn’t teach girls how to connect and interact with people.” 

Featured image credit: Girl Scouts of the USA.