Among the treasures relating to the first ladies in the collections of the Girl Scouts of the USA are a photograph of First Lady Grace Coolidge tasting a Girl Scout cookie in 1923 (oppo site) and a portrait of Lou Henry Hoover by Lydia Field Emmett (right).
receive the portrait, and after ward the former first lady sat in Emmet's New York studio for "trifling details" to be changed on it.29 Four years later, howev er, the work remained with the artist, prompting her to inquire about its ultimate disposition. In part to protect her own reputa tion, Emmet asked whether the Girl Scouts would like it for its headquarters. The national pres ident responded that Eleanor Roosevelt was again asking for the portrait but that Lou Hoover wanted to review it yet another time! 30 What decisions ensued can only be surmised, but correspondence shortly thereafter reveals the portrait was shipped to the Girl Scouts and not to the White House. Seven years later, in 1944, Lou Henry Hoover died. Hope for a final Executive Mansion destination for the portrait rose one more time, however, when in 1950, the National Gallery of Art borrowed it for the sesquicentennial exhibition, Makers of History in Washington, 1800-1950. During that period, the director of the museum and chair of the Commission of Fine Arts, David Finley, asked the Girl Scouts if the organization would be willing to donate the por trait to the White House, as there was no portrait there of Lou Hoover. "Apparently, Mr. Hoover likes our Girl Scout portrait of her better than any other that was ever done," wrote a Girl Scouts board mem ber' and the oil once again went to the Executive
Mansion, this time for "inspection by President and Mrs. Truman" prior to being permanently "placed with the [other] White House portraits." 31 Inexplicably, fate stepped in once again, as President Herbert Hoover's secretary wrote in November that he had selected a different portrait of his wife for the White House upon the completion of the building's restoration. 32 The portrait eventually returned to the Girl Scouts, where it has remained ever since. One of the most spectacular and valuable objects in the Girl Scout collection is the emerald and diamond-encrusted Girl Scout "Thanks Badge" Juliette Gordon Low commissioned Cartier to create as a gift for Edith Wilson. Then honoring those who were not Girl Scouts but who went above and beyond to help the organization, this specially craftA Century of Role Models: First Ladies Elevating Girl Scouts 63