More than 59 million women alive in America today were Girl Scouts at some point during their childhood. That fact comes courtesy of the organization, and makes a lot of sense considering how many of us go crazy around Thin Mint time every year. But Girl Scouts was about more than just buying and selling cookies; it was also about buying and selling other things, like pins, vests, sashes, badges, T-shirts, and camping equipment. The annual Girl Scout catalog encouraged tween gals to convince their parents to buy them everything from Girl Scout branded pencils to little Brownie beanies. Now, thanks to GSCatalogs.com, past and future Scouts can browse everything that’s ever been available via scans of every single catalog issued between 1917 and 2015. The scans are remarkably thorough and high-resolution, meaning you can zoom in on prices and pictures of Daisy scout smocks from 1988 just as easily as you can check out what kind of badges were available to Girl Scouts in 1931. The entire site is a fairly fascinating look back at not only years of organized scouting, but at what kind of merchandise was hot for kids in each era. The ’80s and ’90s are fairly scrunchy-heavy, for instance, while the 2015 catalog boasts both stylish Girl Scout headphones and a “traditional Trefoil Bling Brooch.”
For those who want to dive even deeper into Girl Scout world, GS Catalogs also has scans of a number of different badges and “Try-Its,” though they’re unfortunately not really labeled by what each patch signifies.
[via Metafilter]