Scouts at Camp (India)

This lantern slide, “Scouts at Camp (India),” shows a large group of boy scouts and scout leaders in India. They are all standing in formation and angled away from the camera. Two white tents back up to a forest. This slide is part of Springfield College’s lantern slide series depicting Y.M.C.A. work in India, Sri Lanka, and Myanmar in the early twentieth century. The series was prepared by the Foreign Division of the American and Canadian Y.M.C.A, which established self-sustaining associations staffed by trained secretaries in foreign lands.The Bharat Scouts, founded in 1909, is the national scouting association of India and was originally founded as an overseas branch of the Scout Association. In the United States, the Y.M.C.A. was involved with the Boy Scouts movement, and so it’s likely that the Association was involved with the scouting movement in India. The Y.M.C.A. began working in India in 1889, when they sent a young American named David McConaughy to Madras to serve as the first foreign secretary in India. McConaughy encouraged the development of pre-existing Associations and held the first National Convention in 1891, resulting in the formation of the National Council of India, Burma, and Ceylon. The Association’s most notable contribution in India was its rural development work, first begun by K. T. Paul in 1913. Paul established microloan programs that freed the rural poor from the grips of moneylenders and won many converts among India's lower classes. Edward Van Altena (1873-1968), the photographer, was born in Milwaukee, WI, and moved to Brooklyn with his family when he was five years old. He gained his appreciation for art from his mother and soon became a photographer. In 1888, he went to work for a studio on Fulton Street in Brooklyn.Text on border reads, "Edward Van Altena; 24; India Murru Scouts in Camp.