1917 BOY SCOUT LIBERTY LOAN MEDAL

 
Source: Stack's Bowers Galleries

Back in 2011 when I began research on my hometown, College Point, NY, and its involvement in World War One, I came upon an article dated October 25, 1917 with a headline reading College Point Takes $282,700 Liberty Bonds. Included was a sentence that I failed to notice at the time saying that Queens County Boy Scout Executive Charles A. Worden had come to present honor medals to twenty-one scouts who had solicited at least ten subscriptions from ten separate families, and to acknowledge the splendid work performed in the nation's first Liberty Loan drive.

At the time, the small town had six troops, including one, Troop 2, that was organized on August 6, 1910 by Poppenhusen Institute Director John Gyger Embree, a very good friend of sculptor and Institute Board member, Hermon Atkins MacNeil. On March 20, 1930 Troop 2 would be recognized as being the oldest Boy Scout Troop in the United States.

 

 

Knowing nothing about the medal, I did some research and learned that in late June, Secretary of the Treasury William G. McAdoo asked the Boy Scouts of America to make a house-to-house canvas of their respective cities and villages between April 27 and May 4. The medal was issued by the Treasury Department.

 

The medal and bar bearing the inscription "United States Treasury War Service Award", was designed by Edward Herrick Thompson. It was cast in bronze by the Gorham Company showing the statue of liberty on the obverse flanked by the scout symbol and inscribed "War Service" above Lady Liberty and "Every Scout to Save a Soldier" beneath. On the reverse the name of the holder is engraved with the words "Presented by the United States Treasury Department for Service in Liberty Loan Campaign, Boy Scouts of America, June, 1917." Additional award bars were given for subsequent Liberty Bond drives. The Boy Scouts were heavily involved in selling these bonds to the public, and this medal served as recognition for their significant contributions to the campaign.

The response to McAdoo's request was spectacular with at least 75,000 scouts across the country reaching and/or exceeding the minimum number of ten subscriptions, and through their efforts raising $23,000,000.

For anyone wishing to read a brief, but informative article, click on https://sossi.org/journal/scouts-ww1-liberty-bonds.pdf.

	NBS (coinbooks.org) Web