Lone Scout: W. D. Boyce and American Boy Scouting

"Lone Scout: W. D. Boyce and American Boy Scouting" is the biography of a Progressive-era Chicago businessman and world-wide explorer. Paralleling Theodore Roosevelt in many activities, during his lifetime Boyce (1858-1929) attained international prominence--"a man with friends in almost every civilized country." His sustaining legacy, also a reflection of Roosevelt's interest in and concern for children, was bringing the concept of Boy Scouting to the United States and combining it with youth programs established by the YMCA and other organizations. This is the first authoritative biography of William D. Boyce, founder in 1910 of the Boy Scouts of America.

Born to a Pennsylvania farm family, Boyce's monetary successes were as a Chicago newspaper publisher. Between 1887 and the early 1930s, his periodicals were read by millions of subscribers in rural and small-town America.

A lifelong adventurer, Boyce made extensive trips to all parts of the world. During World War One, he traveled to Europe on the British luxury liner Lusitania (three months before it was torpedoed by a German submarine). He made two African safaris and spent nearly a year traversing South America. Sending detailed reports of those foreign experiences as articles for his newspapers, the stories were later reprinted in books published by Rand McNally & Company.

Among the last hugely successful turn-of-the-century entrepreneurs, Boyce amassed a fortune valued in 1916 at $20 million (approximately $328 million in 2003 value). Perhaps because his death in 1929 occurred on the brink of the Great Depression--a time of vast economic and political change, W. D. Boyce has been virtually forgotten in American history. Yet his accomplishments were many, and his lasting gift is the Scouting program he initiated in 1910 and helped finance through the early years, a program that today serves more than four million American boys.

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William Boyce was a man of whom little is truly known. There is no Boyce Library and Archive and there is not any overflowing amount of information about him in the BSA National Archives. He was an important fringe character whose story should be known.

Due to this lack of information, LONE SCOUT is the first book that goes into the persona of the man, the man who is generally credited with bringing the idea of Boy Scouting to the USA in terms of the present organization known as the BSA. In my research of the beginnings of the worldwide Movement of Boy Scouting, LONE SCOUT has been a rather good resource on this topic that enabled me to delve further into the story of Boyce with regard to his role in the BSA. And since this is the first substantive biography on him, it should be the one upon which all future ones should be compared.

At this point in time, Ms. Petterchak's book is the most definitive look into Mr. Boyce's life, and to my literary knowledge, font size has never been a critical determinant in discerning the quality of content. A panning argument of "large font size" is cursory and of little importance.

Give this book a read, it's highly worth one's time.

2 of 6 found the following review helpful:

Disappointing!Apr 29, 2004
I've purchased many books (new and used) dealing with Scouting, and this is the first one that I had an almost physical reaction when I opened it. For the rather expensive price ($21.95) for a paperback, I was expecting a book on the par of Kett's "Rites of Passge" or MacLeod's "Building Character." Needless to say, the small paper size, the large font size, the paltry number of endnotes, and the limited bibliography was a disappointment.

To be perfectly honest, it looks more like a college paper than a published professional biography. This sense was confirmed when I noticed that the author was citing an undergraduate unpublished paper as a source! And a source for a US Congressional Report that any good researcher can obtain with no problem.

Unfortunately, a serious biography of Boyce has yet to be written and published. If you'e wanting to read such a work, you'll have to wait. If you really want to read this book, then wait a year and you'll be able to buy it when it is marked down to it's real value in the used book stores.

4 of 6 found the following review helpful:

Entertaining & Informative BiographyFeb 28, 2004
For readers interested in Boy Scout history, and especially about the organizaton's founder, this is a valuable biography. No previous book on the Scouts has offered more than a few sentences about Boyce. The "Lone Scout" research, index, and narrative style are all excellent. I especially enjoyed the chapter on his African safari, the "Balloonograph Expedition." What an adventure!