The Campfire Girls' duty call

The Campfire Girls' duty call

Children's fiction

The Campfire Girls' Duty Call is the fifth in the Campfire Girls series. Created in 1909 as the female counterpart to the Boy Scouts of America, this series was produced and commissioned by the official Campfire Girls organization. This book follows three principal Campfire Girls who live in New York State: Letty, Mary Lee, and Pauline, who are inspired by friend-of-the-family Dr. Anderson to set aside their spending money to buy Victory Bonds to benefit the war effort. This is the first of three speeches which propel the girls to patriotic efforts. The second speech is also made by Dr. Anderson, who tells them about a young man named Henry Eichel, born to German-American parents, who was captured as a prisoner of war by Germans, and since his name was not Americanized, his family thinks he may be tortured as a traitor. The final speech is made by Mary Lee herself, who tells of how she and her fellow Campfire Girls created a fund to benefit the war effort, using their spare change, which would have gone towards clothes.

There is also an instance of a Native American character being shown in a positive light. Jim Lee, who helped to raise Mary Lee as an adoptive guardian, goes off to war. Notably, the girls see him dressed in his uniform during a parade.

The advertisements at the back of the book may also be of interest, as they highlight the presumed target audience of the Campfire Girls series:
The Camp Fire Girls Series
The Campfire Girls and AuntMadge
The Campfire Girls' Week End Party
The Campfire Girls' Success
The Campfire Girls in High School
The Campfire Girls' Duty Call
The Campfire Girls at Work
All these stories are written for live, healthy girls; not the namby pamby kind, but girls that like fun and action.
Girls just like you are your-self, that don't want to live in a glass cage and have everything done for them, but who want to do things for themselves and for others.
We are sure you will just love these stories.
You can get these books wherever books are sold.

Hart, Helen

Personal Collection

Whitman Publishing Co.

c.1920