RED CROSS, AMERICAN

RED CROSS, AMERICAN. Clara Barton and associates founded the American Red Cross in Washington, D.C., on 21 May 1881. Barton first learned of the Swiss-inspired International Red Cross Movement while in Europe following the Civil War. Returning home, she campaigned for an American society and for ratification of the Geneva Convention protecting the war injured, which the United States ratified in 1882.

Barton led the Red Cross for twenty-three years, during which time it conducted its first domestic and overseas disaster relief efforts, aided the U.S. military during the Spanish-American War, and campaigned successfully for the inclusion of peacetime relief work as part of the International Red Cross Movement—the so-called American Amendment that some Europeans initially resisted.

The Red Cross received its first congressional charter in 1900 and a second in 1905, the year after Barton resigned from the organization. This charter—which remains in effect today—obligates the Red Cross to provide aid to the sick and wounded in war, give relief to and serve as a medium of communication between members of the American armed forces and their families, and provide national and international disaster relief and mitigation.

Prior to World War I, the Red Cross introduced its first aid, water safety, and public-health nursing programs. With the advent of war, the organization experienced phenomenal growth under the leadership of the banker Henry P. Davison and a War Council appointed by P resident Woodrow Wilson. The number of local chapters grew from 107 in 1914 to 3,864 in 1918, and membership jumped from 17,000 to more than 20 million adult and 11 million Junior Red Cross members. The public contributed $400 million in funds and material to support Red Cross programs, including those for U.S. and Allied forces and civilian refugees. The Red Cross staffed hospitals and ambulance companies and recruited 20,000 registered nurses to serve the military. Additional Red Cross nurses helped combat the worldwide influenza epidemic of 1918.

After the war, the Red Cross focused on service to veterans and enhanced its programs in safety training, home care for the sick, accident prevention, and nutrition education. Major disasters also called for relief efforts, including the Mississippi River floods of 1927 and severe drought and economic depression during the 1930s.

In World War II, the Red Cross again provided services to the U.S. military, Allies, and civilian war victims. It enrolled more than 71,000 nurses for military service, prepared 27 million packages for U.S. and Allied prisoners of war, and shipped more than 300,000 tons of supplies overseas. At the military's request, the Red Cross also introduced a national blood program that collected 13.3 million pints of blood for use by the armed forces.

After World War II, the Red Cross initiated the first nationwide civilian blood program, which now supplies nearly 50 percent of the blood and blood products in this country. The Red Cross played an increasing role in biomedical research and expanded into the banking and distribution of human tissue. During the 1990s, it undertook a massive modernization of its blood services operations to increase the safety of its blood products. It continued to provide services to members of the armed forces and their families, including during the Korean, Vietnam, and Persian Gulf wars. The Red Cross also entered new fields, such as civil defense, CPR/AED training, HIV/AIDS education, and the provision of emotional care and support to disaster victims and their survivors. It helped the federal government form the Federal Emergency Management Agency and serves as its principal supplier of mass care in federally declared disasters.

While closely associated with the federal government in the promotion of its objectives, the Red Cross is an independent, volunteer-led organization, financially supported by voluntary public contributions and cost-reimbursement charges. A fifty-member, all-volunteer board of governors leads the organization. The president of the United States, who is honorary chairman of the Red Cross, appoints eight governors, including the chairman of the board. The chairman nominates and the board elects the president of the Red Cross, who is responsible for implementing the policies and programs of the board. The American Red Cross works closely with the International Committee of the Red Cross on matters of international conflict and social, political, and military un-rest. As a member of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, which it helped found in 1919, the Red Cross joins more than 170 other national Red Cross organizations in bringing aid to victims of disasters throughout the world.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Dulles, Foster Rhea. The American Red Cross: A History. New York: Harper, 1950. Reprint, Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1971.

Gilbo, Patrick F. The American Red Cross: The First Century. New York: Harper and Row, 1981.

Hurd, Charles. The Compact History of the American Red Cross. New York: Hawthorn Books, 1959.

Pryor, Elizabeth Brown. Clara Barton: Professional Angel. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1987.

Brien R.Williams

See alsoPhilanthropy .

Fundamental Principles of the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement

Humanity. The International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement, born of a desire to bring assistance without discrimination to the wounded on the battle-field, endeavors, in its international and national capacity, to prevent and alleviate human suffering wherever it may be found. Its purpose is to protect life and health and to ensure respect for the human being. It promotes mutual understanding, friendship, cooperation, and lasting peace amongst all peoples.

Impartiality. It makes no discrimination as to nationality, race, religious beliefs, class, or political opinions. It endeavors to relieve the suffering of individuals, being guided solely by their needs, and to give priority to the most urgent cases of distress.

Neutrality. In order to continue to enjoy the confidence of all, the Movement may not take sides in hostilities or engage at any time in controversies of a political, racial, religious, or ideological nature.

Independence. The Movement is independent. The National Societies, while auxiliaries in the humanitarian services of their governments and subject to the laws of their respective countries, must always maintain their autonomy so that they may be able at all times to act in accordance with the principles of the Movement.

Voluntary Service. It is a voluntary relief movement not prompted in any manner by desire for gain.

Unity. There can be only one Red Cross or one Red Crescent Society in any one country. It must be open to all. It must carry on its humanitarian work throughout its territory.

Universality. The International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement, in which all Societies have equal status and share equal responsibilities and duties in helping each other, is worldwide.

Red Cross, American. Clara Barton (1821–1912) founded the American Red Cross in 1881, one year before Congress belatedly ratified the 1864 Geneva Convention concerning wartime help for sick and wounded soldiers.Although Barton played a modest role during the Spanish‐American War, full official recognition eluded her, and impromptu disaster relief became her first priority. After 1900 she was pushed aside by prominent New Yorkers who reorganized the Red Cross and redefined its status, role, and scope: Theodore Roosevelt drafted a new charter that defined a closer relationship to the government and the army; Robert W. DeForest grounded its relief work on the principles of scientific philanthropy and the charity organization movement; and Henry P. Davison gave it legitimacy on Wall Street, headed its endowment fund, and directed its extensive operations during World War I. The Red Cross provided both planned assistance to the military and an outlet for civilian patriotic enthusiasm; the wartime boom brought the organization 20 million members and a treasury surplus of $127 million by 1919. Salaried administrators proliferated despite its tradition of voluntarism.

Ambitious plans for innovative peacetime public‐health and social‐welfare programs at home and abroad soon foundered on war‐weariness and isolationism, opposition from established agencies and interest groups, hostility from the newspapers controlled by William Randolph Hearst, and a grassroots suspicion among volunteers that the central office had been taken over by careerist professionals. Red Cross personnel and aspirations were quickly, if reluctantly, scaled back in response to diminished public expectations and a postwar drop in membership and contributions. Further criticism arose during the Depression of the 1930s, when the Red Cross refused a federal subsidy for assisting drought victims, soliciting private contributions instead, and then agreed to distribute government surplus wheat and cotton. Public controversy was fueled by claims that Red Cross leaders opposed the New Deal, disliked labor unions, and embodied typically white racial attitudes.

Beginning with World War II, improvements in the U.S. military's medical and nursing services changed the Red Cross's wartime role to one of providing generalized recreational services instead of auxiliary medical assistance. In the second half of the twentieth century, despite periodic pressure to assist the State Department's foreign‐policy agenda or White House public‐relations efforts, civilian disaster relief became its principal peacetime function. Over the years, the Red Cross's relationship with the American press and public has fluctuated from adulation to vilification and indifference. Unlike the great philanthropic foundations, its visibility and income varied with the public mood, increasing at times of natural disasters or other crises. An early 1990s survey found that it was the most highly regarded of major U.S. charities. During the Persian Gulf War, for example, donations soared to $26 million.

By the mid‐1990s, the American Red Cross was one of America's largest charitable organizations, with more than 1,300 local chapters, an annual budget of $1.8 billion (mostly raised by private and corporate contributions), a paid staff of around 30,000, and some 1.3 million volunteers annually. A fifty‐member volunteer board of directors governed the organization. Its national programs included disaster relief, a blood‐donor program that supplied about one‐half of the nation's blood supply, and health and safety services including minor‐injury treatment and blood‐pressure and cholesterol‐testing programs. A major initiative focused on increasing health services to minority groups and recruiting minority volunteers. The American Red Cross also worked with the International Red Cross and Red Crescent movement to meet human needs arising from natural disaster or conflicts in many countries, including, at the end of the 1990s, Kosovo and East Timor.
See also Galveston Hurricane and Flood; New Deal Era, The; Philanthropy and Philanthropic Foundations.

Bibliography

Foster Rhea Dulles , The American Red Cross: A History, 1950.
Patrick F. Gilbo , The American Red Cross: The First Century, 1981.

John F. Hutchinson

Red Cross, American. The American Red Cross has served the U.S. military since 1898. Founded on 21 May 1881 by Clara Barton, who had done humanitarian work in the Civil War, the society is part of the more than 175‐member International Red Cross and Red Crescent movement.

The movement was born in Geneva, Switzerland, in October 1863. Despite centuries of war in Europe and the Civil War raging in America, the humanitarian aspects of war had been largely ignored by most governments. Swiss entrepreneur Jean Henri Dunant brought about a change in that attitude when he volunteered to help the wounded, after a battle between French‐Italian and Austrian armies in northern Italy in June 1859. His Memory of Solferino (1862) graphically portrayed the agonies of the 40,000 neglected wounded, influencing governments to consider establishing voluntary relief societies to supplement the work of army medical units.

In February 1863, the International Committee for Relief to the Wounded, precursor to the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), was established. In October 1863, the first Red Cross societies were formed and a red cross was adopted as a neutral symbol; and in 1864, twelve governments signed the first Geneva Convention. The United States acceded to the treaty in 1882 after years of lobbying by Clara Barton.

The four Geneva Conventions protect the wounded and sick on the battlefield (1863), shipwrecked military personnel (1906), prisoners of war (1929), and civilians (1949). Protocols added in 1977 protect civilians caught in internal conflicts. ICRC primarily monitors the conventions.

The International Red Cross and Red Crescent movement follows seven fundamental principles: Humanity, Impartiality, Neutrality, Independence, Voluntary Service, Unity, and Universality. In addition to the societies, it consists of the Geneva‐based ICRC and the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, which was founded in 1919 by American Henry P. Davison to address peacetime needs.

During the Spanish‐American War, American Red Cross nurses and volunteers served in Cuba, the Philippines, and at U.S. camps. In 1911, President William H. Taft authorized the organization as “the only volunteer society” to render aid to the military in wartime. The U.S. Army began providing transportation and subsistence for attached Red Cross personnel in 1912. The Red Cross sent 8,000 workers to Europe during World War I, providing medical, recreational, and welfare services. It operated fifty‐eight domestic and overseas base hospitals for the military, twenty‐four of them in France. Eight million volunteers at home provided welfare services and produced supplies.

During World War II, the American Red Cross collected 14 million units of blood and produced blood plasma, but provided no other medical services. Aided by 7.5 million volunteers at home, some 40,000 staff worldwide supplied emergency communications, welfare and recreational services, and produced 28 million food packages for U.S. and Allied prisoners of war.

Similar services were provided during the Korean War and the Vietnam War, with the military meeting its own blood needs in Vietnam. The Red Cross continues to staff U.S. bases in Europe and elsewhere; it accompanied military units on missions to Somalia, Haiti, the Persian Gulf, and Bosnia.

In 1998 the American Red Cross had over 1,300 volunteer‐led chapters, providing disaster relief, meeting half of the nation's blood needs, and conducting community programs designed to help Americans prevent, prepare for, and respond to emergencies. Over 30,000 staff and 1.4 million volunteers supplied support. The nongovernmental, nonprofit organization has had a congressional mandate since 1900 to provide disaster relief, and emergency communication between the military and their families. A fifty‐member board of governors, eight appointed by the U.S. president, governs the American Red Cross. Past presidents include Clara Barton, William Howard Taft, and George Marshall.
[See also Bosnian Crisis; Caribbean and Latin America, U.S. Involvement in the; Persian Gulf War.]

Bibliography

Foster Rhea Dulles , The American Red Cross—a History, 1950.
Hans Haug , Humanity for All, 1993.

Patrick F. Gilbo

Red Cross, American the U.S. branch of the 175-member International Red Cross movement. Clara Barton, who gave humanitarian aid in the Civil War, lobbied for the United States to join the movement, and it did in 1881. After the American Red Cross served in the Spanish-American War (1898), President William H. Taft in 1911 authorized it as the only volunteer society for aiding the military in wartime, and in 1912 the U.S. Army began to provide transportation and support to Red Cross workers. During World War I 8,000 American Red Cross workers served in Europe. The society operated fifty-eight base hospitals and ran forty-seven ambulance companies, receiving support from 8 million volunteers in the United States. In World War II the American Red Cross's medical services were limited to the collection of 14 million units of blood, but it also provided 28 million food packages for U.S. and Allied prisoners of war and supported mail services for prisoners. Similar work continued during the Korean and Vietnam Wars, with the military providing its own blood supplies in Vietnam. In recent years, in addition to providing disaster relief and supporting public health and safety campaigns in the United States, the American Red Cross has accompanied U.S. armed forces to combat areas including Somalia, Haiti, the Persian Gulf, and Bosnia.

American Red Cross. See Red Cross, American.

American Red Cross see Red Cross .