What happened in 1973?

[asm 411]

I came across the Eagles per year data below and plotted the data on a graph. There is a huge jump in Eagle Scouts in 1973 then drops like a rock to levels from almost 15 years before. Does anyone here have any idea why that would be?

 

The first column is the year, then eagles in that year with the last column eagles to date.

 

1912 23 23

1913 54 77

1914 165 242

1915 96 338

1916 103 441

1917 219 660

1918 222 882

1919 468 1,350

1920 629 1,979

1921 1,306 3,285

1922 2,001 5,286

1923 2,196 7,482

1924 3,264 10,746

1925 3,980 14,726

1926 4,516 19,242

1927 5,713 24,955

1928 6,706 31,661

1929 6,676 38,337

1930 7,980 46,317

1931 8,976 55,293

1932 9,225 64,518

1933 6,659 71,177

1934 7,548 78,725

1935 8,814 87,539

1936 7,488 95,027

1937 7,831 102,858

1938 8,784 111,642

1939 9,918 121,560

1940 10,498 132,058

1941 9,527 141,585

1942 8,440 150,025

1943 9,285 159,310

1944 10,387 169,697

1945 10,694 180,391

1946 10,850 191,241

1947 9,733 200,974

1948 8,016 208,990

1949 9,058 218,048

1950 9,813 227,861

1951 10,708 238,569

1952 15,668 254,237

1953 9,993 264,230

1954 12,239 276,469

1955 14,486 290,955

1956 15,484 306,439

1957 17,407 323,846

1958 17,548 341,394

1959 17,360 358,754

1960 21,175 379,929

1961 24,637 404,566

1962 26,181 430,747

1963 27,428 458,175

1964 29,247 487,422

1965 27,851 515,273

1966 26,999 542,272

1967 30,878 573,150

1968 28,311 601,461

1969 31,052 632,513

1970 29,103 661,616

1971 30,972 692,588

1972 29,089 721,677

1973 46,966 768,643

1974 36,739 805,382

1975 21,285 826,667

1976 27,687 854,354

1977 24,879 879,233

1978 22,149 901,382

1979 22,188 923,570

1980 22,543 946,113

1981 24,865 970,978

1982 25,573 996,551

1983 25,263 1,021,814

1984 27,326 1,049,140

1985 27,173 1,076,313

1986 26,846 1,103,159

1987 27,578 1,130,737

1988 27,163 1,157,900

1989 29,187 1,187,087

1990 29,763 1,216,850

1991 32,973 1,249,823

1992 34,063 1,283,886

1993 33,672 1,317,558

1994 37,438 1,354,996

1995 31,209 1,386,205

1996 37,715 1,423,920

1997 40,296 1,464,216

1998 41,167 1,505,383

1999 47,582 1,552,965

2000 40,029 1,592,994

2001 43,665 1,636,659

2002 49,328 1,685,987

2003 49,151 1,735,138

2004 50,377 1,785,515

2005 49,895 1,835,410

2006 51,728 1,887,138

2007 51,742 1,938,880

(This message has been edited by asm 411)(This message has been edited by asm 411)

[CNYScouter]

I recieved my Eagle in 1973.

 

Perhaps this was due to the change in Eagle requirements that went from 21 MB's to 24 MB's.

 

I know that for my twin brother and I and another set of brothers in our Troop pushed to get our Eagle done as we were grandfathered in to the old requiiremnts until a certain date.

 

And it wasn't just earning 3 more MB's, if I remember right, they also changed the required MB's.

 

[emb021]

CNY's point is one I was going to make.

 

National policy was always when they changed requirements, if you were currently working on the old ones, you could continue to do so. Not sure of any end date, but certainly the only people who could use the 'old' Eagle requirements would have been the Life Scouts already working on them. New Life Scouts would have had to work on the new Eagle requirements.

[gcnphkr]

That was it. If you didn't make the cut off date then you had a bigger hill to climb with the changes. Based on the numbers and that I missed the cut off that would seem to have been 1975.

[ljnrsu]

asm 411 that is due to the changes BSA made in all rank requirements in June 1972. The Eagle required Merit Badges changed and total merit badges increased from 21 to 24.

 

Prior to June 1972 the Eagle required MB's were: camping,cit community,cit nation,conservation of natural resources,cooking,first aid,lifesaving,nature,personal fitness,safety and swimming.

In June the Eagle required MB's became: cit community,cit nation,cit world,communications,first aid,safety,eprep or lifesaving,env sci,personal management,personal fitness or swimming or sports.

 

For Star the amount of MB's increased from 5 including 1 from Eagle list to 9 including 4 from Eagle list. For Life the amount increased from 10 including 5 from Eagle list to 15 including 7 from Eagle list.

 

A scout could use the old requirements for his next rank then he would have to follow the new requirements. So Scouts that were Star working on Life used old requirements for Life and new for Eagle and the changes slowed the process since camping,cooking,nature were dropped and cit world,communications and personal management were added with swimming and personal fitness becoming or.

 

There were other changes made in T-2-1 skill awards replaced skill requirements and MB's were added.

 

The period from June 1972-Feb 1979 is called "urban scouting" when the outing left the scouting and so did the Scouts. Boy Scout enrollment went from 6,427,026 Scouts Dec 31,1971 to 4,284,469 Dec 31,1979. It was so bad that early 1978, Bill Hillcourt asked the Chief Scout Executive to allow him to write a new Boy Scout Handbook. His offer was that he would complete the handbook within 1 year and at no compensation from the BSA. He came out of retirement and wrote the Ninth Edition of the Boy Scout Handbook which came out Feb 1979.

[emb021]

Building off of what "ljnrsu" posted.

 

This period is also referred to as the "improved scouting program", as that was what National call it.

 

It was a disaster.

 

As I understand it, the BSA asked Hillcourt to write the 9th edition. Also, as part of this, Hillcourt created a year-long program of training to revamp and bring back 'outing' called "All out for Scouting". This culimated in a weeklong training program for junior leaders called "Brownsea Double-2". While the program is long gone, elements of B22 lived on in subsequent week-long council junior leader training programs. And this is also way many councils call their JLTC courses (the forerunner to NYLT) "Brownsea".

 

Hillcourt also hated skill awards and wanted them all to be loaded up in boxcars and dumbed on a railroad siding. National didn't finally get rid of skill awards until 1989.

 

[asm 411]

Hey thanks for all the great information.

 

Most of my Scouting as a youth was done during this so called "disaster". I was lucky enough to have adult leadership that seem to stick it out applying a lot of the old stuff. Even though we were following the current requirements as written for rank advancement I spent a lot of time out on outings.

 

My adult leaders never felt that the right answer for what to do if you get lost is to "ask someone for directions" if you know what I mean.

 

Lincoln

Eagle Class of 1980

[ljnrsu]

It was Oct 1977 that Bill Hillcourt offer was accepted by the BSA. My bad got the dates wrong. Should have checked Scouter Terry's Bill Hillcourts link for the dates. http://www.scouter.com/features/0290.asp

[bkale]

I wonder if the 1,000,000th Eagle was advised of the distinction backj in 1983?

 

I was awarded my Eagle in 1982.. interesting numbers.. thanks for the info.

 

BK

NE-IV-215

[Miki101]

That's an affirmative.

 

http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=42967

[asm 411]

I received several emails asking where I got the data. I found it while going through the Scout's L archive from September. The poster there said the data came from national. I am not signed up on Scouts L list server so I can not post a question there to find out how the original poster got the data. Here is the link to the original Scout's L posting.

 

http://listserv.tcu.edu/cgi-bin/wa.exe?A2=ind0809&L=SCOUTS-L&D=1&F=P&P=154928

 

If someone else is a member of Scout's L and can find out, please do and let us know.

 

[Buffalo Skipper]

Adding to the request, I would be interested in seeing stats on Venturing Silver awards, Ranger, and especially Quartermasters.

 

Great info. Thanks ASM 411.

 

 

Eagle Class of 1980

[asm 411]

Does anyone know where I can find the number of Boy Scouts (no Cubs, Venture, Learning for Life...) in particular for each year since 1910. I have been combing the web for them but have not had any luck.

[emb021]

National doesn't track totals for Venturing Silver or Venturing Ranger. Quartermaster they should have. I have old stats for some years for the senior awards on my site (taken from BSA Annual Reports, etc): http://www.geocities.com/Yosemite/Falls/8826/

 

You're probably not going to find membership stats on-line. You need to check BSA Annual Reports. A good university library that has a collection of government publications may have them, as the GPO used to print them.

 

[ljnrsu]

I tried to find BSA membership #s. The only link that still works is from a Troop website. It has total BSA membership #S and some BSA history by year. Couldnt verify the membership #s.

http://www2.powercom.net/~stolerd/about/ahistory.html#top

 

I did find the following from BSA Annual reports on the BSA website.

Total Boy Scout

1998 3,383,504 1,023,442

1999 3,411,852 1,028,353

2000 3,351,969 1,003,691

2001 3,325,505 1,005,595

2002 3,315,296 no breakdown

2003 3,200,218 997,398

2004 3,145,331 988,995

2005 2,938,698 943,426

 

Hope this helps

(This message has been edited by ljnrsu)