History

2021

May 2021

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Visit https://www.census.gov/history every month for the latest Census History Home Page!

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U.S. Census Bureau History: Clara Barton and the American Red Cross

Clara Barton established the American Red Cross in Dansville, NY, on
May 21, 1881. Since its founding, the organization has helped millions
through its emergency assistance, disaster relief, blood donation, and
education services.

Photo courtesy of the Library of Congress.

Clara Barton established the American Red Cross on May 21, 1881, and served as the organization's first president until her retirement at age 83 in 1904. Since its founding, this life-saving, humanitarian organization has assisted millions of Americans in need of food, clothing, shelter, and financial assistance following disasters, aided soldiers and war refugees, and has become a leader in the provision of blood and blood products to our nation's health care system.

Clara Barton was born on December 25, 1821, in Oxford, MA. An educator for many years, Barton moved to Washington, DC, in 1855 where she accepted a position as one of the U.S. Patent Office's first female clerks. Days after the Battle of Fort Sumter, Barton rushed to the aid of Union soldiers injured in the April 19, 1861 "Pratt Street Riot" in Baltimore, MD. Deeply moved by her ability to help the injured in Baltimore, Barton left the Patent Office to raise funds for medical supplies and nurse sick and wounded soldiers following the war's deadliest battles, including Antietam, Fredericksburg, and Gettysburg. By 1862, surgeons nicknamed her the "Angel of the Battlefield" as she often arrived at their beleaguered hospitals with much needed supplies and a willingness to assist anyone in need.

In a February 1865 letter to President Abraham Lincoln, Barton expressed concern that thousands of letters written by the worried family members of missing soldiers were going unread at the War Department. In response, Lincoln authorized Barton to establish the Missing Soldiers Office in Washington, DC, which exchanged more than 63,000 letters with families between 1865 and 1868. During that time, the office assisted distraught families by identifying the graves of more than 22,000 missing Union soldiers. The office also worked to create a national cemetery at the Confederate prison in Andersonville, GA, where it assisted with the identification of an additional 13,000 soldiers buried in and around the prison grounds.

In 1869, Barton traveled to Europe to recuperate from the years of long hours worked at battlefield hospitals and the Missing Soldiers Office. While visiting Geneva, Switzerland, she learned of the work of the International Red Cross and its humanitarian protection of noncombatants; prisoners of war; soldiers wounded on the battlefield; and doctors, nurses, and hospital displaying the "Red Cross." After working with the International Red Cross during the 1870–1871 Franco-Prussian War, Barton returned to the United States to lobby the U.S. government to endorse the Geneva Convention—particularly the "Red Cross of the Geneva Convention"—and establish a U.S. branch of the organization. Unable to persuade President Rutherford B. Hayes to endorse the Geneva Convention over concerns that it entangled the United States in European affairs, Barton founded the American Red Cross on her own during a May 21, 1881 meeting at her Washington, DC, apartment.

Barton continued to lobby the U.S. government to support the Geneva Convention and its recognition of the Red Cross's neutrality until President Chester A. Arthur signed the treaty on May 16, 1882. Crucial to Barton's lobbying campaign was her insistence that the American Red Cross would serve a vital role during both war and peace. Within years of its founding, Barton proved the value of the organization's peacetime operations as it assisted victims recover from a number of disasters, including the Mississippi River flood in 1882, the 1887 Texas Famine, the 1888 Florida Yellow Fever Epidemic , the 1889 Johnstown Flood, and the 1900 Galveston Hurricane—the last major relief operation Barton participated in before her 1904 retirement.

Clara Barton died on April 12, 1912, but the organization she founded continued to grow, attract volunteers, and expand its relief efforts. Since 1941, its blood donation service has grown to account for approximately 40 percent of our nation's total donated blood supply. During war and peace, it continues to support members of the U.S. military, veterans, and their families at home and abroad. American Red Cross volunteers can often be found working alongside first responders helping those in need. When disaster strikes, Americans can count on the support and generosity of the American Red Cross and it volunteers to provide relief.

You can learn more about Clara Barton and the American Red Cross using census data and records. For example:

• Clara Barton was born in Oxford, MA in 1821. At that time, the town in Worcester County, MA, had a population of 905. In 1910, 2 years before Barton's death, its population was 3,361. More recently, the American Community Survey estimated that Oxford's population was 13,974.
• In 1897, Clara Barton moved her home and the American Red Cross headquarters from Washington, DC, to an area of Montgomery County, MD, that was chartered as the town of Glen Echo in 1904. With a total area of just 1/10th of a square mile, Glen Echo's population has grown from 203 in 1910 to 309 in 2019. Barton's home is now part of the National Park Service's Clara Barton National Historic Site.
• Famous American author and adventure-seeker Ernest Hemingway volunteered for the American Red Cross during World War I. The 18-year-old aspiring author drove a Red Cross ambulance during the war, basing his 1929 novel, A Farewell to Arms, on his experience. Other American Red Cross volunteers who found fame after their World War I service include cartoonist Walt Disney (who served in and around Paris, France, after the November 1918 Armistice); Tony Hulman, who owned and operated the Indianapolis Motor Speedway from 1945 until his death in 1977; Suffrage, Civil Rights, and conservation activist Marjory Stoneman Douglas worked for the American Red Cross in Paris, France, aiding refugee families; and 15-year-old McDonald's founder Ray Kroc lied about his age when he volunteered to become an ambulance driver, but the war ended before he completed his stateside training.
• The American Red Cross estimates that approximately 9.5 million people donate blood in the United States each year. Roughly the equivalent of every person in the city of Houston (population 2,310,432 donating blood every 3 months.
• Americans donate approximately 13.6 million units of whole blood annually—equivalent to about 1.7 million gallons—each year. For comparison, visitors to Niagara Falls State Park in Niagara Falls, NY, typically see about 75,750 gallons of water cascade over the American and Bridal Veil Falls and 681,750 gallons over Horseshoe Falls every second; the Saturn V rocket that carried Apollo 11 to the moon in 1969 required about 500,000 gallons of liquid oxygen and kerosene to reach Earth's orbit; pools used during Summer Olympics swimming events, like the one housed at the Georgia Tech Aquatic Center in Atlanta, GA, hold approximately 660,000 gallons; and the main tank at the Monterey Bay Aquarium in Monterey, CA, holds 1.3 million gallons!
• In 2017, the economic census found that there were 4,336 "Voluntary Health Organizations" (NAICS 813212) engaged in fundraising for health-related research, health education, and patient services. These establishments employed 54,552 people.
• Blood and organ banks (NAICS 621991) are critical to the life-saving work performed at hospitals and research facilities throughout the United States. On a normal day, these banks are asked to supply approximately 36,000 units of red blood cells, 7,000 units of platelets, and 10,000 units of plasma. In 2017, the economic census counted 1,562 blood and organ banks in the United States employing 72,833 people.
• The American Red Cross provides financial assistance, shelter, and supplies to survivors of natural disasters. For example, within days of the May 31, 1889 Johnstown Flood that destroyed homes in Pennsylvania's Conemaugh River Valley and left 2,208 dead, Clara Barton was raising money to provide supplies to 25,000 people and shelter residents left homeless by the flood waters. When she was the age of 78, Barton traveled south to assist Galveston, TX, following the 1900 Galveston Hurricane that destroyed homes, business, and killed more than 6,000. In 1906, a 7.8 magnitude earthquake rocked San Francisco, CA, and President Theodore Roosevelt designated the American Red Cross as the national organization entrusted to lead the earthquake relief effort. Since then, presidents have regularly recognized the American Red Cross as the national leader and fundraiser for emergency relief efforts in times of disaster.
• Did you know that the American Red Cross responds to 60,000 or more disasters every year ranging from house and apartment fires that displace a single family to hurricanes, floods, and wildfires that can force thousands from their homes. In 2020, a series of powerful hurricanes lashed the United States' Gulf Coast affecting millions of people. In the wake of those storms, the American Red Cross served more than 2 million meals and snacks, provided more than 808,400 overnight stays in emergency lodgings, and made more than 60,900 individual care contacts for medical, emotional, and spiritual support.

During World War I, 20 million American adults and 11 million youth claimed membership in the American Red Cross and more than 8 million adults were volunteer workers.
In addition to establishing and staffing hospitals to treat the sick and wounded like the volunteer nurse depicted in this 1918 recruiting poster, American Red Cross
volunteers operated ambulances, made and distributed clothing, operated canteens to feed soldiers transiting the United States and Europe, and provided recreation
and welfare services including letter writing, movie distribution, and camp concerts.

Between 1914 and 1921, 400 American Red Cross workers lost their lives while conducting their wartime duties, including 296 nurses.

Photo courtesy of the Library of Congress.

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Did you know?

Surgeon, hygienist, and librarian John S. Billings conducted pioneering vital statistics research during the 1880 and 1890 censuses.

During that time, he befriended Herman Hollerith and encouraged the inventor to pursue mechanical tabulation of data.

Billings later developed Johns Hopkins University's medical curriculum, founded the National Library of Medicine, designed the New York City Public Library's main building, and created the library's cataloging system.

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Phlebotomists

Since 1941, the American Red Cross has worked with churches, schools, hospitals, businesses, and other sponsors to conduct blood drives, including the 1950s event pictured above at the U.S. Census Bureau's National Processing Center in Jeffersonville, IN.

Thanks to the generosity of Americans who volunteer to give blood, the American Red Cross currently supplies about 40 percent of the nation's donated blood—approximately 13.6 million units annually.

Phlebotomists are responsible for safely handling our nation's blood, as they draw blood donations, perform transfusions, and conduct blood research and tests.

According to American Community Survey estimates, the number of people employed as phlebotomists in the United States has grown from 74,625 in 2015 to 98,408 in 2019.

In May 2019, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that the median annual wage for phlebotomists in the United States was $35,510.

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For the Record

In the decades since virologist Dr. Jonas Salk developed the first vaccine for polio, the International Committee of the Red Cross has inoculated millions of people helping to nearly eradicate the disease.

Born in New York City, NY, in 1914, Jonas Salk began studying polio viruses in 1947 and the vaccine he developed led the number of paralytic polio cases in the United States to fall from 35,000 annual cases to less than 20 within a decade. By 1979, the United States had eradicated polio, and by 2000, global cases had fallen by 99 percent.

In 1963, Salk established the Salk Institute for Biological Studies in San Diego, CA. Following his death on June 23, 1995, Salk Institute President Dr. Francis Crick noted that, "Few have made one discovery that has benefited humanity so greatly."

Photo courtesy of the Smithsonian Institute.

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Visit https://www.census.gov/history every month for the latest Census History Home Page!