Among established American institutions, few have been more successful or paradoxical than the Boy Scouts of America. David Macleod traces the social history of America in this scholarly account of the origins of the Boy Scouts and other character-building agencies, through which adults tried to restructure middle-class boyhood.

Back in print; First paperback edition.

David I. Macleod, professor of history at Central Michigan University, was involved with the Boy Scouts from ages eight through twenty. He is author of The Age of the Child: Children in American 1890–1920.

• Contents 
• Tables
• Preface
• Acknowledgments
• Part I: 
• Anxious Adults Confront a Changing World of Boyhood
• 1. 
• Growing Up: Boyhood, Social Class, and Social Change
• 2. 
• Character Building: Adult Ambitions and Concerns
• Part II: 
• Nineteenth-Century Beginnings: Early Forms of Boys' Work
• 3. 
• Keeping Lower-Class Boys Off the Streets: The Mass Boys' Clubs
• 4. 
• Shielding and Strengthening the Middle Class: The Start of YMCA Junior Departments
• 5. 
• Forerunners of Scouting: Temperance Orders and the Boys' Brigades
• Part III: 
• Reorientation and New Forms of Organization, 1900–1920
• 6. 
• Adolescence and Gang-Age Boyhood: An Ideology for Character Building
• 7. 
• The Attempted Professionalization of YMCA Boys' Work
• 8. 
• The Invention of Boy Scouting
• 9. 
• The Organization and Expansion of the Boy Scouts of America
• Part IV: 
• Winning Public Favor and Building a Constituency
• 10. 
• Boyhood, God, and Country: Creation and Defense of a Public Image
• 11. 
• Winning Institutional Support and Volunteer Leaders
• 12. 
• Recruiting a “Fine Lot of Lads”
• Part V: 
• Character Building in Practice
• 13. 
• Camping: An Organized Setting for the New Boyhood
• 14. 
• Adult Instruction and Boys' Responses
• 15. 
• Group Experience, Membership Turnover, and Age Stratification
• Conclusion and Epilogue
• Notes
• Index