Girl Scout Contrafacta and Symbolic Soldiering in the Great War

In 1917, Girl Scouts of the USA produced a magazine called the "Rally, which encouraged Girl Scout leaders and their troops to support the World War I effort by assisting the Junior Red Cross, sewing bandages for soldiers, and singing Girl Scout-themed rewrites of popular songs. Among the magazine's many parodies, as they are also known, was an unattributed contrafactum -, new words to a well-known tune - of Yankee Doodle, published in the magazine's August 1918 issue. Like many other songs the Rally published during World War I, this song illustrates Girl Scouts' patriotism and wartime contributions. However, a deeper consideration of these contrafacta illuminates how Girl Scouts, their captains, and Girl Scouts of the USA negotiated contemporary, competing identities of girlhood during wartime in early twentieth-century America. The contrafacta printed in the Rally represent a valuable source for recovering a musically silent moment in Girl Scout history.