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National Cookie Month

Next celebratedThursday, October 1, 2026

National Cookie Month has the whole of October, which is a generous run for something that rarely lasts an afternoon. Bake a batch and hand most of it around while it is still warm.

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Last updated September 7, 2026 · by the Holiday Calendar TeamHave an update or spot an error?
YEARLY DATEAll of October
OBSERVED INUnited States
CATEGORYFood
SUBCATEGORYBaking
ORIGIN

Community Origin

FOUNDING ENTITY
Not documented
FIRST OBSERVED
Not documented
HOW THE HOLIDAY CAME TO BE

Chase's Calendar of Events picked it up in 1998.

The earliest listing located for an October cookie month is the 1998 edition of Chase's Calendar of Events, which dates that listing rather than the day itself. No founder, sponsor or establishing record was located.

+ Know the story? Submit a founder Help us complete this holiday
INTRO

In October the Girl Scouts are selling nuts

The oldest thing anyone has found in print about National Cookie Month is a complaint about it. On 1 May 1954, Editor and Publisher ran a letter from a reader worn down by the promotional months landing on newspaper desks: "national cookie month and apple week and cotton month and so on."

The letter was signed Omar N. Bradley, General of the Army. He was writing to ask editors for a moment's attention for the United Defense Fund, and he used the cookie month as shorthand for the noise he had to interrupt. He was not announcing anything.

An October cookie month did eventually reach the record. Chase's Calendar of Events, the American directory of special days, weeks and months, first lists it in the 1998 edition. It appears in none of the 36 earlier volumes HathiTrust holds.

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ORIGINS

Cookie Month history

INTRODUCTION

American cookie selling has a calendar, and it was fixed long before anyone thought to name a month for it. Girl Scouts of the USA dates the practice to 1917, when a troop baked cookies and sold them in its high school cafeteria as a service project.

The troops baked their own at first, in wax paper bags sealed with a sticker. In 1933 the Greater Philadelphia council sold boxes in the windows of the city's gas and electric company. The price was 23 cents for a box of 44.

By 1936 the national organization had begun licensing commercial bakers, and by the next year more than 125 councils reported holding cookie sales.

CHAPTER 01

March belonged to the cookie

Through the middle of the century, the cookie month that actually reached American newspapers was March, and it belonged to the Girl Scouts. The papers printed it without explanation, as though everyone already knew. "This month is Girl Scout cookie month," ran a notice in the Press Democrat on 21 March 1969.

The Highland Park News-Herald and Journal put it the same way in March 1971. Two years later the Contra Costa Times ran the line as a headline: "March Is Cookie Month!"

CHAPTER 02

A registrar for the promotional month

The promotional month got its registrar in 1957, when brothers William and Harrison Chase published the first Chase's Calendar of Events. Its publisher now describes the book as 12,500 entries covering 196 countries.

October filled up before the cookies got there. National Pasta Month appears in the 1987 edition. Pizza follows the next year, and dessert in 1992.

CHAPTER 03

Cookies arrive last

National Cookie Month reaches the book in 1998. The record shows the entry and nothing about who proposed it, and no sponsor, campaign or organiser has surfaced in the indexes searched since.

So the month arrived into an October that was already crowded, in a book built to keep track of exactly that kind of arrival.

TIMELINE

Timeline

A troop bakes and sells

Girl Scouts of the USA dates cookie selling to the Mistletoe Troop in Muskogee, Oklahoma, which sold its own baking in a high school cafeteria.

Bakers are licensed nationally

The national Girl Scout organization began licensing commercial bakers to produce cookies that councils would sell across the country.

The phrase reaches print

A letter in Editor and Publisher lists national cookie month beside apple week and cotton month as announcements crowding editorial desks.

Chase brothers start the date book

William and Harrison Chase published the first edition of the reference book that registers America's special days, weeks and months.

March is Girl Scout cookie month

California newspapers print the line plainly, putting the Girl Scout cookie sale in March rather than October.

October gets its cookie entry

Chase's Calendar of Events carries National Cookie Month for the first time, a decade after the same book listed the October pizza month.
Answer

No. It is an unofficial observance, so schools, banks and offices work a normal October, and no legal standing for it was found in the federal indexes checked.

COLOPHON

Sources

How we know what’s on this page. References, not endorsements.

12sources
11primary records
5independently dated
Primary records
Internet Archive1954-05-01
Editor and Publisher, 1 May 1954, Vol 87 Iss 19
The readers' column carrying Omar N. Bradley's letter about promotional months.
View source
HathiTrust Digital Library
Full-text search for National Cookie Month within Chase's Calendar of Events
Which editions of the American date book contain the phrase, and which do not.
View source
Girl Scouts of the USA
Girl Scout Cookie History
The organisation's own account of cookie selling from 1917 to the present.
View source
Girl Scouts of the USA2026-01-06
Girl Scouts of the USA Kicks Off National Cookie Season
The January opening of the national cookie season and the months it covers.
View source
Girl Scouts of Northeast Texas
Nuts, Candy, and Magazines
A council's autumn sale, its dates, and the products it actually offers.
View source
US Bureau of Labor Statistics2024
Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages, NAICS 311821, 2024 Q4
Plants, monthly employment and wages for American cookie and cracker making.
View source
US Bureau of Labor Statistics
QCEW industry title file
The official name attached to each federal manufacturing industry code.
View source
The American Presidency Project
Advanced search of the presidential document archive
A searchable archive of 188,489 presidential documents.
View source
California Digital Newspaper Collection
Search results for Cookie Month, 1900 to 2000
Scanned California newspapers, with each hit dated and attributed to its paper.
View source
Bloomsbury Academic2025-10-16
Chase's Calendar of Events 2026
The publisher on the date book's scale and its founding by the Chase brothers.
View source
HathiTrust Digital Library
Catalog Record: Creative Forecasting
A monthly for activity professionals in retirement communities, catalogued.
View source
Additional coverage
TODAY2025
National Cookie Day 2025: Deals and Freebies to Save You Some Dough
Coverage of the December 4 observance and the chains that promote it.
View source
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