Item Detail
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31178
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1
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3
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English
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AN EXTRAORDINARY TROOP : The Boy Scouts program at Kalaupapa
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Hawaiian Journal of History
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2019
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53
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Honolulu, Hawai'i
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University of Hawai'i Press
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83-105
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"IN FEBRUARY 1949, an article published in Boys’ Life magazine caught the attention of thousands of Scouters and their supporters. In the piece titled “Most Remarkable Troop,”1 James W. English, an assistant editor of the magazine, highlighted the unique Scouting program at Kalaupapa, a settlement on the Hawaiian island of Moloka‘i where patients diagnosed with Hansen’s disease, then called leprosy, were confined for fear of spreading this malady. Scouting had come to Hawai‘i the same year the Boy Scouts of America (BSA) organization was founded. An article titled, “How to Become a Scout,” was already in print by early September 1910 in the Pacific Commercial Advertiser, explaining how to join or organize a patrol or troop in the Hawaiian Islands.2 Subsequent news reports by the Honolulu Star-Bulletin told of Scouting activities in Hawai‘i, including early BSA travels.3 It was viewed as an [End Page 83] organization founded to establish values and ethics, to prepare boys for the military, and to Americanize first-generation immigrants. Hawai‘i Scouting records, personal letters and journals, as well as Kalaupapa primary sources and oral histories, provide a glimpse into the unique experience of Scouting at Kalaupapa and the adventures of the boys, notwithstanding the fact that as Hansen’s disease patients they had some limitations. This article explains the establishment, development, and uniqueness of Troop 46, and recognizes and appreciates the service and positive attitude of these resilient Boy Scouts and their devoted adult leaders." [Author]