Los Alamos Reporter: McKenzie Gerlicher's Exhibit On Girl Scouting During The Manhattan Project On Display At Municipal Building
December 02, 2022
Troop 10074 Girl Scout McKenzie Gerlicher’s exhibit on Girl Scouting During The Manhattan Project is currently on display at the Los Alamos County Municipal Building. Gerlicher undertook the project for her Girl Scout Silver Award, which is the highest award that a Cadette Girl Scout can earn, and consists of a large service project that makes the world a better place.
For this exhibit, Gerlicher reached out to the community asking if anyone had artifacts or photos of women who were Girl Scouts during the Manhattan and Cold War periods.
“They were not allowed to register here in Los Alamos to keep Los Alamos a secret, so they weren’t an official troop. They had only nine girls at the start, but in the Cold War period, that number grew. They started doing more activities and even had their own ‘headquarters’ called the Girl Scout Little House. They used the Little House to host events and activities,” Gerlicher said.
One of the people that collaborated on the project with Gerlicher was Ruth Lier, a Los Alamos Living Treasure, who came to Los Alamos to teach science. While helping with her daughter’s Girl Scout Troop, Lier was instrumental in creating the Quemazon Trail. She donated her collection of Girl Scout memorabilia to the Los Alamos History Museum an Gerlicher was able to use some of those items in her exhibit. She was able to acquire a photo of a uniform that is in the museum’s archives to display so that the original would not fade if included in the display. Lier was one of the attendees at the opening reception for Gerlicher’s exhibit.
