Newcomb Archives
Kolb, Carolyn
2007-72
Table of Contents
Summary Information
- Repository
- Newcomb Archives
- Creator - Creator
- Kolb, Carolyn "Pani" Goldsby
- Title
- Carolyn Kolb Collection
- ID
- 2007-72
- Date [inclusive]
- Circa 1950s to 1960s
- Extent
- 2.0 Cubic feet 2 scrapbook boxes, 1 fabric box
- Language
- English
Biographical/Historical note
From Kolb:
I was born in New Orleans in 1942. Once my father came back from the Army, my parents and I moved to Bogalusa, Louisiana. In Bogalusa I first attended Annunciation Catholic School (though my family were Methodists), and then attended Bogalusa High School from ninth grade on.
Bogalusa had begun as a sawmill town; investors from the North had brought pine-lands and began cutting timber circa 1910. The town was formed in the 1920's, and when I was growing up the largest industry there was the paper mill. It was owned by the Gaylord Corporation, and later brought by Crown Zellerbach. Bogalusa was not a particularly Southern town because there was a strong trade union base; there were few if any old families, even fewer 19th century buildings, and a number of northerners working either at the mill or in peripheral industries. My father’s family, however, was an old family from the same area of Louisiana, called the Florida Parishes. Because of this we had extended family in nearby communities.
My father was the representative of the Internal Revenue Service for the surrounding parishes and my mother was a registered nurse. She served as director of the nursing school at the Bogalusa Medical Center. It was a community hospital, and was once called the Sawmill Company Hospital. When the school closed, she became head of central supply at the newly opened Washington-St. Tammany Charity Hospital.
The overwhelming culture of the town was of a Southern Baptist nature, with many of the mill workers and a majority of the population coming from the surrounding rural south. This included residents from Mississippi; Bogalusa was on the state line. About 20 to 30 percent of the population was African American while I lived there, and the African-American population has grown in Bogalusa with time. Bogalusa suffered badly during the Civil Rights era. There were about 25,000 people in Bogalusa in the 1950's; now, in the 1990's, there are only about 13,000 residents.
The Camp Fire Girls was begun in Maine sometime after the turn of the century, probably during the early 1920s. It was modeled after the Boy Scout and Girl Scout programs. It was supposedly introduced to Bogalusa by the wife of a newspaper editor in the 1940’s. I believe she had had experience with the program elsewhere, outside of Louisiana. The program was not in all towns in Louisiana; though there were groups in Baton Rouge and Eunice, there were no groups in New Orleans while I was active. In 1966 I served on the charter board of the Greater New Orleans Council of Camp Fire Girls. The board was formed to help accommodate members of the many families whose jobs where frequently transferred from the Boeing Corporation in Seattle to the Michold Assembly Facility in Louisiana. The Camp Fire Girls were a very active organization in Seattle.
When I was a member the Camp Fire Girls the program began with inclusion in Blue Birds from ages seven to ten. There were weekly meetings, a navy blue uniform with a red vest, songs, and ceremonies. Camp Fire Girls, the central program, began at ten year of age. The entire program was exclusively for girls at that time; boys were not included in the program until sometime in the 1980’s.
The Camp Fire Girls program proceeded in ranks or steps with time: the first year was Trail Seeker, then Wood Gather, Fire Maker and Torch Bearer. Each rank had several steps that had to be completed in order to advance to the next level. To complete the requirements for Trail Seekers you had to have an Indian name; the Camp Fire Handbook had a list of Indian syllable meanings that could be combined to create names. Other requirements included making a scrapbook, learning songs, taking part in Camp Fire ceremonies, and earning various honor beads. The scrapbook included is an example of the scrapbooks made to fulfill the Trail Seeker requirements. The honor beads were of different colors for different categories. You could trade in ten small beads and get a large bead. You could sew the beads on to either a vest or a beige, cotton ceremonial gown, complete with leather fringe embellishments. I never had a gown. There were lists of different tasks in the handbook, and each task earned an honor bead. The tasks were organized under different classifications. These classifications determined the color of the beads that you earned: red beads for athletics and sports tasks, yellow beads for business tasks, sky blue beads for frontiers or science tasks, brown beads for outdoors and woodcrafts tasks, orange beads for homemaking tasks, green beads for handcrafts tasks, purple beads for fine arts tasks, and others.
I believe that the handmade scrapbook was made for Trail Seekers, indicating that it dates from 1952. The other scrapbook was made for either the next or prior year. The photo shows me in my Camp Fire uniform, surrounded by various crafts projects. Around 1954 I entered the projects in the Washington Parish Fair, and won first prize in the hobby show's children’s category.
The Camp Fire High School program was called the Horizon Club. It did not place emphasis on costumes, and instead emphasize group service projects. I stayed in the camp fire program from the second through the twelfth grade. Since I skipped the fifth grade in school, I only had three years of Horizon Club; I stayed with my original Blue Bird Group through the Camp Fire program.
In the 1950’s, when there was no feminist movement to speak of, girls organizations like Camp Fire found a way to nourish self-esteem in young women. Like other youth activities in the 1950’s the program was regimented, conservative, and perhaps even then rather old fashioned. It was also a great deal of fun! For young, inquisitive, driven, academic achievers like my youthful self, it was a LOT of fun.
Two notes: the Bogalusa Community Concerts Series obviously had good artists. There is an autographed program in the scrapbook for a Jerome Hines concert; Hines sang in the Magic Flute in New Orleans in 1998, more than 40 years later. Also Camp Fire had an active program in Bogalusa’s black community.
Scope and Contents note
The first collection box contains two scrapbooks: the first is memorabilia from when Carolyn was a girl in South Louisiana and the Mississippi Gulf Coast; the second contains Camp Fire Girl photos with newspaper clippings about the group.The second box contains a matted portrait of Carolyn Goldsby Kolb in her Camp Fire Girl uniform and some of the crafts she made in the program.The fabric box contains a 1960s-style green and yellow designer dress, as well as a Camp Fire Girl vest decorated with earned beads.
Organization and Arrangement
The two scrapbooks are placed together in one box, while a Campfire Girl Portrait is in its own box. A designer dress and Camp Fire Girl vest are contained in a fabric box.
Administrative Information
Publication Information
Newcomb Archives
Newcomb Center for Research on WomenSeltzer-Gerard Reading Room
62 Newcomb Place
New Orleans, Louisiana, 70118
504 865 5762
vorhoff@tulane.edu
Controlled Access Headings
Corporate Name(s)
- Camp Fire Girls.
- Mignon Faget.
Genre(s)
- Scrapbooks
Personal Name(s)
- Kolb, Carolyn "Pani" Goldsby
Subject(s)
- Camps