There was not much for young girls to do with their lives outside of their traditional domain of homemaking when Juliette Gordon Low decided to make them do what the Boy Scouts did: get  outdoors, learn practical skills, and most of all build self-reliance. Women could not even vote yet, but Low wanted to give her charges the same background in arts and sciences – and the freedom to chart their own path – as the men had.

On this day, June 10, in 1915, the Girls Scouts was incorporated in Washington, D.C., with 18 girls as members.

Today, the Girl Scouts have some 3.7 million members. Hillary Clinton and Condolleezza Rice were both Scouts at one time, just two of the many strong-willed, independent women shaped by the organization. Although membership has declined from the 1980s peaks, the Girl Scouts are still popular among minority children and still offer them the first step on the path to greatness.  After all, the vast majority of women CEOs, politicians or astronauts, started out as Girl Scouts.