E. Urner Goodman
Edward Urner Goodman was an influential leader in the Boy Scouts of America movement for much of the twentieth century. Goodman was the national program director from 1931 until 1951, during the organization's formative years of significant growth when the Cub Scouting and Exploring programs were established. He developed the BSA's national training center in the early 1930s and was responsible for publication of the widely read Boy Scout Handbook and other Scouting books, writing the Leaders Handbook used by Scout leaders in the United States during the 1930s and 1940s. In the 1950s, Goodman was executive director of Men's Work for the National Council of Churches in New York City and active in church work.
Goodman is best remembered today for having created the Order of the Arrow, a popular and highly successful program of the BSA that continues to honor Scouts for their cheerful service. Since its founding in 1915, the Order of the Arrow has grown to become a nationwide program having thousands of members, which recognizes those Scouts who best exemplify the virtues of cheerful service, camping, and leadership by membership in BSA's honor society. As of 2007, the Order of the Arrow has more than 183,000 members.
Early years and marriage
Goodman was born and raised in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, where his father, George, was a printer and real estate agent. His mother, Ella, died of typhoid fever in early 1895 when Goodman was just three years old. He attended Central High School, graduating in 1909. He enjoyed writing and began keeping a detailed journal of daily activities during his senior year of high school, expressing his aspirations for the future along with occasional doubts. With several classmates, he began a literary club and published a newsletter, The Inkstand. He also showed interest in music, playing the piano and violin, and composed a song for his high school senior class. When it was not selected by the class officers, he wrote in his journal of his disappointment.Goodman also took an early interest in church activities as a youth, participating in a boys' brotherhood group and Sunday school and becoming a member of Tioga Presbyterian Church at age 14, an event he described as "the most important step I ever took or ever will take in my life." Just barely out of his teens, Goodman became a popular and highly respected Sunday school teacher and led the Philadelphia chapter of a young men's group called the Brotherhood of Andrew and Philip.
Aspiring to a career in education, Goodman enrolled in the Philadelphia School of Pedagogy in 1911. He was selected to be the commencement speaker at his graduation in 1913 and his address was entitled, "The Call to Teach". Goodman then did graduate work in education at Temple University, while teaching at the Potter School in Philadelphia.
On June 18, 1920, Goodman married Louise Wynkoop Waygood, the daughter of a Presbyterian minister and a 1918 honors graduate of Swarthmore College. They had three children: Theodore, George, and Lydia Ann. He was a member of Kiwanis, Rotary International, and a Freemason, joining Robert A. Lamberton Lodge No. 487, Free and Accepted Masons of Philadelphia on March 5, 1918.
Scouting career
As a volunteer and local council leader
While studying for his degree in education, Goodman first became involved in Boy Scouting in 1911 when only 20 years old, as a volunteer Scoutmaster of Troop 1, the first Scout troop in Philadelphia. As far as can be established, this would make him the second-youngest Scoutmaster in the history of the BSA. In his four years as Scoutmaster, the troop grew to more than 100 Scouts. A contemporary of Goodman described him in 1912 as "well beloved by the boys, enjoys their confidence and is heart and soul in this phase of the work." In later years, he would recall with nostalgia his troop, noting that renowned composer Albert Hay Malotte was "one of his boys" in Troop 1. On April 1, 1915, he entered full-time professional service in Boy Scouting as a field executive, called a "Field Commissioner" at the time. That summer, Goodman served as director of the Philadelphia Scout Council's summer camp. He was promoted in December 1917 to Scout executive of the Philadelphia Council.Goodman's professional Scouting career was interrupted during World War I, when he was drafted into the U.S. Army shortly after his promotion to Scout executive. He served in the infantry as a first lieutenant, but his unit was never sent overseas. In December 1918, he was discharged from the Army and resumed his professional career as Scout executive in Philadelphia. Spotlighted in an October 1920 column in the Philadelphia Evening Ledger, Goodman described Scouting as "leading boys through the muscle-building, mind-developing, character-forming program of scouting". He cited Scouting's service in the war effort and extolled the movement as "absolutely nonpartisan, nonsectarian, and democratic", bringing together "diverse elements".
Goodman served as Scout executive in Philadelphia until May 1927, when he was promoted to the larger Chicago Area Council as Scout executive. During his four-year tenure in the "Windy City", he reversed a decline in finances and increased Scout membership from 11,806 to 16,920.
As a national leader
On April 1, 1931, Goodman was promoted by Chief Scout Executive James E. West to become national program director of the BSA, as part of an organizational restructuring. Goodman was one of four division directors reporting to West. As national program director, he was responsible for professional and volunteer training, relations with sponsoring organizations, public relations, and program development. The Cub Scouting and Exploring programs were established under his leadership. He greatly expanded BSA training programs for adult leaders, establishing the BSA's highly regarded national training center at Schiff Scout Reservation in New Jersey in 1932 and, later, the training program at Philmont Scout Ranch, beginning in 1938. He also oversaw the publication of the Boy Scout Handbook, edited by his good friend and colleague William "Green Bar Bill" Hillcourt, as well as the Handbook for Scoutmasters and the first edition of the widely read Scout Field Book. Goodman also wrote the Leader's Handbook, a key instructional guide for Scout leaders.File:BSA leadership at the 1937 Scout Jamboree-E. Urner Goodman, Walter Head, James E. West.jpg|thumb|left|200px|BSA leaders at the 1937 national Scout jamboree:
E. Urner Goodman ',
BSA Pres. Head ',
James E. West '
In early July 1937, the BSA held its first national Scout jamboree in Washington, D. C., attended by 25,000 Scouts and Scouters. In addition to overseeing the innovative event itself, Goodman's public relations service did yeoman work to ensure extensive news media coverage. A jamboree press tent accommodated 626 news media reporters, photographers, and broadcasters. Sixty-four news releases were issued and the public relations service assisted in the making of 11 newsreels and 53 magazine articles. The three major U.S. radio networks of the time, NBC, CBS and Mutual, all set up complete broadcasting studios near the jamboree headquarters to produce almost 19 hours of live, on-site jamboree coverage broadcast coast-to-coast. Celebrities also visited the jamboree, including well-known broadcaster Lowell Thomas and U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt. While at the jamboree, Scouts also attended a three-game baseball series between the Washington Senators and the Boston Red Sox at Griffith Stadium, with Goodman arranging for Eagle Scouts to have a place of honor with President Roosevelt in the stands.
In his comprehensive biography of E. Urner Goodman, Nelson Block writes that the mutual respect between Goodman and West grew over their 12 years of working together at the national BSA office: "West, the hardworking, detail-oriented executive, came to rely on Goodman and his style of accomplishing big things through diligent organization and planning, executed by carefully recruited staff...".
When the venerable youth leader and longtime National Scout Commissioner Daniel Carter Beard died shortly before his 91st birthday in June 1941, Goodman was selected to be in charge of the beloved pioneer's funeral in Suffern, New York. An estimated 2,000 people lined the funeral route to the cemetery in Monsey, New York, where formed an honor guard and assisted with traffic control.
File:Pres Roosevelt and Boy Scouts in 1937.jpg|thumb|right|200px|Goodman ' and Eagle Scouts with FDR at Griffith Stadium ballgame
As war clouds cast an ominous shadow over Europe in the late 1930s amidst the rise of fascism, West, Goodman, and other BSA leaders considered how Scouting might better train youth in democratic principles of government. Referring to the Nazi Kristallnacht rampage against Jews in 1938, Goodman wrote shortly afterwards: "...the program of persecution has stirred up our hearts and minds as nothing else that has happened before has done. It has furnished the impetus of a wave of resentment against the evil; but more than that, for a surge of satisfaction and thanksgiving concerning our own happier state under a democracy." During World War II, various BSA programs were developed under his leadership in support of the nation's war effort, such as the collection of scrap aluminum, tires, and waste paper for recycling into war material, distribution of war bond and air raid posters, assisting Civil Defense officials, and planting of fruit and vegetable "victory gardens".
On September 16, 1951, Goodman retired as national program director, ending a professional Scouting career spanning 36 years. He was given the title of National Field Scout Commissioner, to continue his service to Scouting on the national level as a layman.