NH Girl Scout Earns Gold Award For 'Herstory' Project

Portsmouth, NH — A high school senior at Oyster River High School has earned the highest possible honor as a Girl Scout. In an announcement Tuesday, the Girl Scouts of the Green and White Mountains council (which encompases Vermont and New Hampshire) honored Emma Kinsey, of Durham, for a project that wove together the stories of three very different women in history.

Kinsey's project, titled "Herstory" and featured at the Portsmouth Strawbery Banke Museum, dove into the everyday lives of women, including Sarah Parker Goodwin, the wife of New Hampshire Gov. Ichabod Goodwin during the Civil War. Kinsey also researched a Ukrainian Jewish family who "managed to raise themselves up from poverty."

In the news release, Kinsey — who plans to study microbiology and genetics at Scripps College in California — said she was drawn to history because of her desire to "understand what makes people unique."

She added, "I think one of the things I take for granted is understanding how the inner workings of people’s lives happened 100, 200 years ago." ;

Last year, twelve Girl Scouts from New Hampshire and Vermont earned Gold Awards. Kinse is the fifth Gold Award recipient of 2020 for the Girl Scouts of the Green and White Mountains council.