The Red Cross Movement Is Founded
to Protect Victims of War
The American Red Cross is part of an international humanitarian
movement that has its roots in 19th century war-torn Europe.
In 1862, Henry Dunant, a young
Swiss businessman, wrote A Memory of
Solferino, in which he described what he had seen
on the northern Italian battlefield in 1859 where 40,000 troops were killed
or wounded and left without help. His concern touched many, leading to the
birth in 1863 of the International Committee of the Red Cross
(ICRC). This first committee, which included
Dunant, adopted a red cross on a white background as the emblem, the reverse
of the Swiss flag.
Dunant's ideas led to the Geneva Conventions, international
treaties designed to protect these war victims: the wounded and sick on land
(1864) and sea (1906), prisoners of war (1929), and civilians (1949). Since
then, 165 governments have signed to Geneva Conventions, including additional
revisions to protect victims of all armed conflict. Today, the all-Swiss
ICRC continues it protective role around the world.
The American Red Cross is one of more than 164 national societies
that make up the International Federation of Red Cross
and Red Crescent Societies, headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland.
(Governments recognized the crescent as a protective emblem in 1929.) In
addition, the American Red Cross works closely with the non-member Magen David Adom (MDA) society of Israel.
The Federation encourages its member societies to work together to relieve
suffering from major natural disasters.
Together, the people who form the ranks of each Red Cross society,
the ICRC, and the Federation symbolize compassion and help world wide. Their
programs are founded on the basic principles of Humanity, Impartiality (nondiscrimination toward those in need), Neutrality, Independence (freedom of action), Voluntary
Service, Unity (only one society
in each country),l and Universality (societies have equal status and help each other). For more than 125
years, Red Cross workers have eased the pain of millions of people of all
races, religions, and beliefs.
Clara Barton Leads Red Cross Relief
Efforts in America
While Dunant's vision was spreading in Europe, civil war was
raging in the United States. Clara Barton, a former schoolteacher and government
worker who came from a small farm in Massachusetts, went to the battlefield
to help care for the wounded.
After the Civil War, Barton went to Europe. She learned of the
Red Cross Movement and worked in relief efforts for civilians during the
Franco-Prussian War of 1870- 71. Returning home, she worked to persuade the
U.S. government to sign the Geneva Conventions. On May 21, 1881,the American
Association of the Red Cross was founded. Later the first chapter was established
in Dansville, New York. The following year, the U.S. Senate ratified the
Geneva Conventions, allowing America to become the 32nd nation to support
the international treaty.
Barton's unique contribution to the world-wide Red Cross Movement
was organizing volunteers to help disaster victims. Her idea became reality
when Red Cross volunteers in New York shipped food and clothing to victims
of the Michigan forest fires in 1881. In 1882 and 1884, Barton organized
and personally supervised Red Cross relief efforts along the flooded Ohio
and Mississippi rivers. Red Cross volunteers fed, sheltered, and gave medical
care to the 25,000 victims of the 1889 Johnstown, Pennsylvania flood.
Barton did not limit her servies to the United States. Under
her leadership, volunteers of the American Red Cross helped victims of the
Russian famine of 1892. In 1896, they helped ease, as Barton described it,
" terrible suffeing" of Armenians living in Turkish-controlled Armenia. During
the Spanish-American War of 1898, Barton, then 76 years old, went to Cuba
with her nurses to provide nursing care, medical supplies, food, and other
necessities to civlians and troops.
These American Red Cross efforts to relieve suffering did not
go unnoticed. In 1900, the U.S. Congress granted the American Red Cross a
charter, making the volunteer organization responsible for providing services
to members of the U.S. Armed Forces and relief to disaster victims at home
and abroad.
Clara Barton resigned as head of the American Red Cross in 1904
and was replace by Mabel T. Boardman. Boardman, a volunteer, guided the American Red Cross through a series of
internal crises and reforms. In 1905, Congress approved a revised charter
to enhance the Red Cross's effectiveness as a national society responsible
for disaster relief and service to members of the military and their families.
Soon after, the American Red Cross faced one of its biggest
challenges when an earthquake and fire destroyed much of the city of San
Francisco 1905. In a matter of minutes more than 500 San Franciscans died
and tens of thousands of other were left homeless. President Theodore Roosevelt
named the American Red Cross the official agency to help the stricken city,
describing the Red Cross as "the only organization chartered and authorized
by Congress to act at times of great national calamity."
Under Red Cross leadership, various agencies and volunteers
carried out the enormous task of tending to the injured, sheltering and feeding
the homeless, and distributing public contributions government funds and
supplies. The San Francisco operation instilled Red Cross leaders with renewed
confidence and ideas for new directions in a number of health and safety
area.
For example, the American Red Cross sold Christmas Seals, the
nation's first, from 1907 to 1919 to help finance the country's fight against
tuberculosis. In 1909 Jane Delano (a native
of Schuyler County, New York), then
superintendent of the Army Nurse Corps, established a Red Cross nursing program.
By organizing nurses to travel around the country, she helped spearhead a
relentless attack on communicable diseases in the nations' urban and rural
area. Delano resigned from the Army in 1912 to devote full time to the Red
Cross nursing corps, which would later officially serve the U.S. army and
navy in World War I.
In 1910, Army Major Charles Lynch and Matthew Shield, M.D.,
began Red Cross first aid and industrial safety campaigns to reduce accidents
that daily crippled and killed America's workers. Red Cross instructors sometimes
crisscrossed the nation in Pullman railroad cars to take courses directly
to workers in the factories in the early years. The Red Cross even translated
it's first aid handbook into several languages to reach the many immigrant
workers. Today, almost 4 million certificates a year are awarded for taking
Red Cross CPR and other first aid courses.
Former newspaperman Wilbert E. Longfellow helped establish Red
Cross water safety instruction in 1914 to combat the mounting number of drowning.
As a result, drowning began to decline significantly, and now Red Cross
instructors award more than 2 million Red Cross water safety certificates
a year.
Americans Rally Around the Red Cross
During World War I
When war broke out in Europe in 1914, the American Red Cross
had only 107 chapters. By the end of the war, the number of chapters had
grown to 3,864. One out of every five Americans was a member of the American
Red Cross.
By 1916, America itself was on the brink of war with Germany,
At the request of the Surgeon General of the Army and Navy, the American
Red Cross organized 50 base hospitals in France and elsewhere. When the United
States went to war in 1917, President Woodrow Wilson quickly mobilized the
American people behind the American Red Cross and appointed a War Council
to run the Red Cross. More than 340 million adults and young people became
active supporters.
As the war went on, Red Cross workers provided medical and
recreational services for the military at home and abroad. They also pioneered
the development of psychiatric nursing programs at veterans' hospitals, made
artificial limbs, and helped rehabilitate amputees and blinded veterans.
With the strong support of President Wilson, the Junior Red
Cross began in 1917. It was an opportunity for young people in America to
help their country. They raised money, cultivated gardens, made relief items
for war victims. By the end of the war, this force of young people numbered
11 million.
Eight million American Red Cross production workers in local
chapters provided more than 371 million relief articles, such as furniture
and knitted sweaters. Overseas, American Red Cross workers served in more
than 25 countries, helping millions of civilian refugees as well as U.S.
and Allied soldiers. More than 2,000 American Red Cross workers remained
abroad after the war to continue their humanitarian work.
The war took it toll on the people of the American Red Cross.
For example, of the 24, 000 nurses recruited for war duty, 296 died in service.
The American Red Cross helps People
Rebuild Their Lives After the War
After the war, American Red Cross leaders launched a massive
effort to help victims in Europe, particularly eastern Europe. American Red
Cross staff resettled masses of displaced refugees and reunited families.
They cared for children orphaned by the war. They established nursing schools,
provided medical treatment for victims of typhus and other epidemics, and
distributed food and clothing.
It was during this time that thousands of nurses were recruited
into the Red Cross public health nursing program to bring better health and
hygiene to needy people living in rural America. There was also a dramatic
increase in Red Cross instructors, who trained their neighbors in first aid,
nursing skills, and water safety during the 1920s and 1930s. Humorist Will
Rogers said in 1927, in a serious vein: "We are so used to the things the
Red Cross does that we sometimes just forget to praise the."
The Red Cross responded to a series of major disasters, notably
the Mississippi and Ohio river flood of 1927 and 1937. In cooperation with
the federal government, the Red Cross set up camps that fed and housed tens
of thousands of flood victims.
Then came the disastrous drought and depression of the 1930s.
In addition to providing food and shelter, Red Cross workers distributed
millions of bushels of wheat and flour donated by the government around the
country.
During this same period, Red Cross workers took the first steps
in recruiting blood donors for hospitals, laying the groundwork in 1937-38
for what later would become the American Red Cross Blood Services program.
The first Red Cross blood center was established in New York's Presbyterian
Hospital in February 1941. Its director was Charles Drew, M.D., pioneer of
modern blood processing techniques.
Volunteers Help Soldiers, Sailors, and
Civilians in World War II
By this time, nearly every family in America had a member who
had either served as a Red Cross volunteer, made a contribution of money
or blood, or been a recipient of Red Cross services.
When the United State entered World War II in 1941, Americans
again supported the American Red Cross. By the time the Marines stormed the
beaches at Guadalcanal in 1942, more than 3 million volunteers were involved
in Red Cross activities. At home, young and old collected scraps, served
in hospitals, produced war relief materials, taught health and safety courses,
and aided military personnel. By 1944, the number of volunteers doubled to
7.5 million.
In addition, over 70,000 registered nurses served through the
Red Cross; 13.4 million units of blood were collected for the wounded; 28
million food parcels were shipped to U.S. and Allied war prisoners; and thousand
of workers provide welfare and recreational services to service personnel
overseas.
With strong endorsement from president Roosevelt, the American
public donated $784 million - equivalent to more than $5 billion in today's
currency - to support Red Cross efforts between 1941 and 1946.
When peace was restore, the American Red Cross, along with Red
Cross societies in other countries, the ICRC, and the League, reunited family
members separated by the conflict and carried on extensive relief and
rehabilitation programs for the civilian victims of the war. From the beginning
of the war though June 30, 1946, the American Red Cross has been instrumental
in aiding more than 75 million people, 27 million of whom were children.
The American Red Cross Evolves at Midcentury
As the world changed dramatically after World War II, the Red
Cross needed to undergo some changes of its own. At its annual national
convention in 1947, thirty chapter delegates were elected to sit on the Red
Cross' newly created Board of Governors. For the first time in American Red
Cross history, local chapters had a clear majority on the governing board,
placing the Red Cross's future in the hand of the local volunteers. This
major change in the organization ensured the local community needs would
be addressed.
Also as a result of the convention, the Red Cross initiated
a national blood program in 1948, the largest peacetime project the American
Red Cross had ever undertaken in the health field. Today, Red Cross workers
meet the critical need for blood and blood products by collecting, processing,
and distributing half the nation's blood supply.
During the Korean and Vietnam wars and throughout peacetime,
Red Cross workers continued to provide counseling and recreation services
to members of the Armed Forces. And thousand of Red Cross volunteer hurried
to their neighbors' assistance when devastating tornados, floods, or hurricanes
hit the country. |
