In dark skirts and bloodied boots, Clara Barton fearlessly ventured on to Civil War battlefields to tend to wounded soldiers. She later worked with civilians in Europe during the Franco-Prussian War, lobbied legislators to ratify the Geneva conventions, and founded and ran the American Red Cross. The American Red Cross from Clara Barton to the New Deal tells the story of the charitable organization from its start in 1881, through its humanitarian aid during wars, natural disasters, and the Depression, to its relief efforts of the 1930s.Marian Moser Jones illustrates the tension between the organizations founding principles of humanity and neutrality and the political, economic, and moral pressures that sometimes caused it to favor one group at the expense of another. This expansive book narrates the stories of: U.S. natural disasters such as the Jacksonville yellow fever epidemic of 1888, the Sea Islands hurricane of 1893, and the 1906 San Francisco earthquake crises abroad, including the 1892 Russian famine and the Armenian massacres of 1895-96 efforts to help civilians affected by the civil war in Cuba power struggles within the American Red Cross leadership and subsequent alliances with the American government the organization's expansion during World War I race riots in East St. Louis, Chicago, and Tulsa between 1917 and 1921 help for African American and white Southerners after the Mississippi flood of 1927 relief projects during the Dust Bowl and after the New DealAn epilogue relates the history of the American Red Cross since the beginning of World War II and illuminates the organization's current practices as well as its international reputation.
Introduction Chronology Part I: The Barton Era 1. Miss Barton Goes to Washington 2. Transatlantic Transplant 3. National Calamities 4. The Misfortunes of Other Nations 5. Cuba and Controversy Part II: The Boardman 6. Barton versus Boardman 7. Shifting Ground 8. Establishment 9. Fighting on Two Fronts Part III: Between the Wars 10. Triage for Terror 11. Baptism in Mud 12. Scorched Earth 13. A New Deal for Disasters Epilogue: Blood and Grit Acknowledgments Notes List of Archival Sources Index
""Well-researched and accessible in its writing, Jones's history of the ARC offers the reader GÇô both inside and outside academia GÇô a thorough and up-to-date examination of one of the most important voluntary associations in the history of the United States.""
