Wikipedia:Today's featured article/February 22, 2006

The history of merit badges in the Boy Scouts of America (BSA) has been tracked by categorizing them into a series of merit badge types. Merit badges have been an integral part of the Scouting program since the start of the movement in the United Kingdom in 1908. Scouting came to the United States in 1910; the BSA quickly issued an initial list of just 14 merit badges, but did not produce or award them. In 1911, the BSA manufactured the first official 57 merit badges and began awarding them. The number of badges available has been as high as 140 and, as of 2006, is 121. Merit badge types are identifiable by the cloth and manufacturing process used to make them. The classification of badges into types came about as a way for collectors to categorize and classify their collections. Merit badge collectors often collect other Scouting memorabilia as well. (more...)

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