Today is the 139th anniversary of the American Red Cross. For the last 139 years, the American Red Cross has worked to become one of the nation’s most premier humanitarian organizations by collecting generous contributions of time, blood, and money from Americans.
The idea for the American Red Cross was prompted by Clara Barton when she was visiting Europe. She heard about the Swiss-inspired global Red Cross network and wanted to bring it home to the States following the Civil War. On May 21, 1881, Clara Barton and a group of acquaintances founded the American Red Cross in Washington, D.C. Barton led the Red Cross for 23 years and was able to conduct the first domestic and oversea disaster relief effort, aid the United States military during the Spanish-American War, as well as successfully campaign for the inclusion of peacetime relief work as part of the global Red Cross network even with the initial resistance from Europe.
Red Cross was the organization to bring first aid, water safety, and public health nursing programs to light before the First World War, the war just made the organization grow. The chapters grew from 107 to 3,862 in just four short years and the membership grew from 17,000 to over 20 million adults and 11 million Junior Red Cross members. The public was able to provide Red Cross programs with $400 million in funds and material which allowed Red Cross to staff hospitals, ambulances, and to recruit 20,000 registered nurses to serve the military.
Since WWII, Red Cross has provided relief for victims in the Mississippi River floods in 1927, victims of severe drought, victims of the Depression, and more events. They were also able to help in the Second World War by enrolling more that 104,000 nurses for military service, preparing 27 million packages for American and Allied prisoners of war, shipping over 300,000 tons of supplies overseas, and collecting 13.3 million pints of blood to be used by the armed forces.
Since WWII, the Red Cross has supplied more that 40% of the blood and blood products in the United States. In the 1990s. Red Cross engineered a modernized blood service operation to improve the safety of their blood products to continue to provide services to members of the armed forces and their families. Their services were used in the Korean War as well as the Vietnam and Gulf Wars.
Today, Red Cross has expanded their services to provide civil defense training, CPR/AED training, HIV/AIDS education, and the provision of emotional care and support in the wake of disasters. Visit redcross.org to find a blood drive near you. Every donation helps someone in need.
