Since 1881, people have turned to the American Red Cross for emergency services. Today, 1.2 million trained and dedicated American Red Cross volunteers, young and old, are helping their neighbors across the country every day.

Although it is not a government agency, the American Red Cross is chartered by Congress to provide special services to members of the U.S. Armed Forces and to disaster victims. American Red Cross workers assist our men and women in Armed Forces and their families in emergencies. They are at the scene of more than 60,000 disasters a year, from house fires to devastating flood and tornadoes. They also teach their neighbors lifesaving skills in Red Cross CPR, First Aid, water safety, and health courses. They collect about 6 million units of blood yearly in local blood drives. They work with sister Red Cross societies around the world to help victims of natural and man-made calamities.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

The American Red Cross Adapts to Today's Needs

Today, the American Red Cross and its family of 1.2 million adults and youth volunteers remain a vital part of nearly every community in America, constantly adapting to meet the emergency needs of their neighbors.

As we approach the 21st century, more and more Red Cross volunteers are being trained for technological disasters - such as those that might be caused by toxic chemicals, explosive materials, and radiation - as well as traditional operations to help people prepare for and cope with tornadoes, floods, house fires, plane crashs, earth quakes - and disasters that threaten individuals or communities.

To help people prevent personal health emergencies, Red Cross nurses and volunteers in many chapters administer programs in nutrition health assessment in the workplace, stress management and more. They also meet the needs of the general public with a variety of programs such as exercise and telephone reassurance activities for the elderly, immunization clinic and health fairs, high blood pressure screening and follow-up and voluntary work in hospitals or clinics. Many chapters have programs for the homeless, and some provide volunteers to assist AIDS victims.

Red Cross instructors teach parenting and lifesaving skills, certifying and recertifying more than 60 million of their friends and neighbors over the past 10 years in Red Cross CPR, first aid, and small craft and water safety.

Each year, Red Cross workers help organize community blood drives that collect blood from more than 4 million donors all across America. In addition, some Red Cross chapters and Blood services regions are also meeting the crucial need of people who need bone and tissue transplants so they can lead more active lives. And in July 1986, the American Red Cross launched the first central bone marrow registry in the United States in collaboration with other medical associations.

To meet one of the most serious public health threats of the century, The American Red Cross, in 1985, began its Public Education program to slow the spread of AIDS. Through posters, brochures, films and slide shows, and public service announcements over televisions and radio and in the press, as well as through community-action groups and Red Cross volunteers, tens of millions of Americans have been given a chance to learn the facts about AIDS.

And for those who serve or once served in the nation's Armed Forces, Red Cross workers on U.S. military installations and in the chapters continue to provide emergency, social, and health-related service to them and their families wherever they are located.

Americans continue to help others through the American Red Cross, particularly in times of disaster. They have helped the organization fulfill its mission both at home and abroad over the years through generous contributions of money and donations of blood and time. In turn, Red Cross workers have responded daily to help people avoid emergencies, prepare for those that might occur, and cope with those that do. Governed and directed by volunteers, the American Red Cross stands out as a prime example of what Henry Dunant had in mind when he initiated the international humanitarian movement more than 125 years ago.

The programs of the American Red Cross are made possible by the voluntary services and financial support of the American people.