|
|
|
|
During the First World War, 18,000 Red Cross nurses served
with the Army and Navy Nurse Corps, with nearly half serving at
home to ensure exemplary health and sanitary conditions. The
remainder served at American base hospitals in France, on
hospital trains, and in As the world made the transition to peace, it saw the creation of Henry P. Davison's League of Red Cross Societies and then the League of Nations, which received the blessing of world leaders. As directed by Article XXV of the League of Nations Covenant, the world's Red Cross Societies began "the improvement of health, prevention of disease, and mitigation of suffering throughout the World." Following the armistice, the American Red Cross immediately sent doctors and nurses to several countries to help local medical personnel set up clinics and teach health courses. Refugees flocked to the facilities for food, shelter, and medical care. The Red Cross operated about twenty-five civilian hospitals and convalescent homes for war refugees, as well as numerous health centers, clinics, and mobile dispensaries around France. Red Cross volunteers assisted more than 1.7 million French people with their basic needs and resettlement. |
|
With
the strong support of President Wilson, the Junior Red Cross began in 1917. On September 15, 1917, President
Woodrow Wilson officially announced the American Junior Red
Cross movement, telling young people that they could now share
in the "best work in the great cause of freedom."
Within eighteen months, the Junior Red Cross signed up 11
million members who volunteered their time and money to serve
their school, community, or local Red Cross chapter. They also
contributed moneys to the international Junior Red Cross Fund
that endowed three French children's hospitals, established
libraries and playgrounds, and helped finance schools in Italy.
They filled friendship boxes for children overseas, tended war
gardens, engaged in "the conservation of second-hand
articles" such as fruit pits for gas masks and scrap metal,
and gave "assistance to the Government of the United States
and the American Red Cross in many other lines of work." In
all, members of the American Junior Red Cross helped produce 10
percent of the 371 million relief articles between 1918-1919.
evacuation
and field units in the zone of advance. The Red Cross provided
two out of every three Navy nurses and four out of five Army
nurses, including the first African-American nurses. Nurses
worked diligently at home, especially during a deadly influenza
epidemic that swept the country in 1918. Responding to a call
for help from the Surgeon General of the United States Public
Health Service, 15,000 Red Cross nurses, dietitians, and others
were recruited to work in military camps, hospitals, coal
fields, munitions plants, and shipyards, where they remained
until the epidemic finally subsided in the spring of 1919.
|
|
 |