The Birch-Bark Roll was the “handbook” of the Woodcraft Movement. It was published in various ways, in various forms, under various titles from 1902 until 1948.
The first edition is considered to be the series of seven articles under the name Ernest Thompson Seton’s Boys in the Ladies Home Journal in 1902. The last was the Memorial Edition, published in 1948 following Seton’s passing in 1946. There are also reprints of different editions of the Birch Bark Roll readily available today.
Some people reasonably consider Seton’s classic work, Two Little Savages, as a version of The Birch Bark Roll. It includes many Woodcraft skills, activities, and games that found their way into The Birch Bark Roll. However, it is not really a handbook of the program. It is said that when Seton was first considering a handbook of woodcraft activities, Rudyard Kipling advised him to present the lessons of Woodcraft in story form. The result was the semibiographical Two Little Savages. Two Little Savages was serialized in the Ladies Home Journal from January through August 1903, the year following the publication of Ernest Thompson Seton’s Boys. Two Little Savages was then published in book form that same year.
We have compiled a reference list of editions of The Birch-Bark Roll. That is not an easy task for several reasons. Many of these editions were published over 100 years ago. Sometimes “proof editions” were published without a clear designation of the edition they related to. Sometimes editions were published without identifying a publisher or year. Occasionally, editions seem to have been published out of order. Some editions were published in relatively large quantities, and others in smaller quantities. For all of these reasons and more, we consider this list to be a work in progress. We would welcome your additions, corrections, comments, and other input on the list. Please contact us with any information you may have to share.
We hope the list is interesting and helpful. Thanks for understanding that this is a work in progress!
| Year | Publisher | Title | Edition in Bibliography1 | Notes |
| 1902 | Curtis | Ernest Thompson Seton’s Boys | 1st | 2 |
| 1903 | Curtis | How to Play Indian | 2nd | |
| 1904 | Greenwich Press | The Red Book or How to Play Indian | 3rd | |
| 1905 | Camp Conference | Laws of the Seton Indians | 4th | 3 |
| 1905 | YMCA | Laws of the Seton Indians | 5th | 4 |
| 1906 | Doubleday Page | Birch-Bark Roll of the Woodcraft Indians | 6th | |
| 1907 | Doubleday Page | Birch-Bark Roll of the Woodcraft Indians (new edition with additions) | 7th | |
| 1907 | Doubleday Page | Birch-Bark Roll of the Woodcraft Indians (a new edition, enlarged) | 8th | |
| 1910 | Doubleday Page | The American Boy Scout | 9th | 5 |
| 1910 | Doubleday Page | Boy Scouts of America Offical Handbook | 10th | 6 |
| 1912 | Doubleday Page | The Book of Woodcraft and Indian Lore | 11th | |
| 1915 | Doubleday Page | The Book of Woodcraft and Indian Lore, Second Edition | 12th | |
| 1915 | Woodcraft Headquarters | Woodcraft Boys, Woodcraft Girls How to Begin | 13th | |
| 1915 | Doubleday Page | The Manual of the Woodcraft Indians: The Fourteenth Birch Bark Roll | 14th | |
| 1915 | Doubleday Page | The Woodcraft Manual for Boys of The Woodcraft League- The Fifteenth Birch-Bark Roll | 15th | |
| 1916 | Doubleday Page | The Woodcraft Manual for Girls of The Woodcraft League – The Fifteenth Birch-Bark Roll | 15th | |
| 1916 | Country Life Press | The Birch Bark Roll for the Girls of the Big Lodge | – | 7 |
| 1917 | Doubleday Page | The Woodcraft Manual for Boys, The Sixteenth Birch Bark Roll | 16th | |
| 1918 | Doubleday Pag | The Woodcraft Manual for Boys The Seventeenth Birch-Bark Roll | 17th | |
| 1918 | Doubleday Page | The Woodcraft Manual for Girls – The Eighteenth Birch-Bark Roll | 18th | |
| 1920 | Doubleday Page | The Woodcraft Manual for Boys of the Woodcraft League | 18th | |
| 1922 | Doubleday Page | The Book of Woodcraft and Indian Lore | 19th | |
| 1923 | Doubleday Page | The Woodcraft Manual for Boys of the Woodcraft League | ||
| 1924 | Brieger Press | The Woodcraft Manual of the Woodcraft League | 8 | |
| 1925 | Brieger Press | The Woodcraft Manual of the Woodcraft League | ||
| 1927 | Brieger Press | The Birch Bark Roll of Woodcraft | ||
| 1927 | A.S. Barnes | The Birch Bark Roll of the Woodcraft League | ||
| 1930 | Not Stated | The Birch Bark Roll of Woodcraft – Coups and Degrees | 9 | |
| 1931 | AS Barnes | The Birch Bark Roll of Woodcraft – Activities Section | 10 | |
| 1932 | UNM Press | The Birch Bark Roll of Woodcraft – Organization Section | 11 | |
| 1948 | Woodcraft League | Memorial Edition of the Birch Bark Roll |
(1) The edition is based on the Edition column based on the information in Ernest Thompson Seton: A Short Biographical Sketch Donen by Various Hands, to Which is Attached a Complete Bibliography of the Works of this Author, which was published by Doubleday Page in 1927. The accuracy and completeness of this bibliography have been the subject of some debate.
(2) Ernest Thompson Seton’s Boys was published in seven monthly articles in the Ladies’ Home Journal from May through November 1902.
(3)The Laws of the Seton Indians were included in the 1905 Camp Conference Secretary’s Report. The Conference of Summer Camps for Boys.
(4) The Laws of the Seton Indians were included in Association Boys, a publication of the YMCA.
(5) The American Boy Scout was a version of the eighth edition of the Birch Bark Roll with a new title page inserted. While it is labeled the eighth on the title page, it is listed as the ninth edition in the Bibliography to distinguish it from the other version of the eighth edition.
(6) Seton prepared the “original” edition of the Official Handbook of the Boy Scouts of America using material from The Birch Bark Roll and Baden-Powell’s Scouting for Boys. Most printings show it with two authors, Seton and B-P, while others show Seton as the only author on the cover. There has been speculation that Seton secured the right to republish the Original Handbook on his own after the BSA issued the next edition. The 1910 Official Handbook was considered a temporary one that was issued before many organizational and program decisions of the BSA. It is generally referred to as the Original Handbook as contrasted with the First Edition of the BSA Handbook, issued in 1911.
Seton was a major contributor to the 1911 First Edition handbook, but there were many other contributors, and that handbook describes the Boy Scout program as opposed to the Woodcraft program. It was issued under the authority of the new Editorial Board of the BSA, of which Seton was not a member. Seton was listed as Chief Scout and a member of the Executive Board and the National Council. The introductory material of the handbook contains a “Message from the Chief Scout,” signed by Seton. Various chapters related to Woodcraft, Nature, and Indoor and Outdoor Games are specifically attributed to Seton.
(7) The 1916 Birch Bark Roll for the Girls of the Big Lodge was listed as a proof edition, but no other version was published under that name.
(8) Labeled as the Twentieth Edition.
(9) Labeled as the 28th Edition.
(10) Labeled as the 29th Edition and as having been revised by Julia M. Buttree.
(11) Labeled as the 30th Edition and as having been revised by Julia M. Buttree.
