The Red Cross

[Photograph of members of the Toussant L'Overture Chapter of the American Red Cross, Savannah, Chatham County, Georgia, 1918]

Carroll free press (Carrollton, Ga.), Oct. 17, 1918

[Photograph of an unidentified Red Cross worker in uniform, LaGrange, Troup County, Georgia, 1917]

[Photograph of canteen operated by the Red Cross during World War I, Thomasville, Thomas County, Georgia, between 1917 and 1918]

Members of the Toussant L'Overture Chapter of the American Red Cross in Savannah, Georgia in 1918.
Courtesy of the Georgia Archives, Vanishing Georgia Collection.
The Carroll Free Press announces a city quarantine ordinance closing public gathering spaces in Carrollton, Georgia due to the Spanish Influenza epidemic. October 17, 1918.
Courtesy of the Georgia Newspaper Project, Georgia Historic Newspapers.
An American Red Cross worker in LaGrange, Georgia in 1917.
Courtesy of the Georgia Archives, Vanishing Georgia Collection.
A group of American Red Cross workers stationed at a canteen in Thomasville, Georgia during WWI that serviced soldiers in transit to Kelly Field in San Antonio, Texas to train as aviators.
Courtesy of the Georgia Archives, Vanishing Georgia Collection.

After providing medical aid to soldiers on battlefields during the American Civil War, Clara Barton adopted the concept of the Red Cross from Europe, where the organization focused on the welfare of wounded soldiers during wartime. When Barton brought the organization to the United States in 1881, she designed the American Red Cross to not only provide assistance during times of war, but also to offer medical and material relief when the nation faced crises during times of peace. The first chapters of the Georgia Red Cross were established in 1914 and many female nurses joined their ranks. They played a significant roles treating WWI soldiers convalescing at Fort McPherson, a military base in Georgia, and they became critical in preventing the spread of the 1918 Spanish Influenza Pandemic, a deadly disease that caused communities to halt public services, abandon gathering spaces, and quarantine inside their homes. From September 1918 through March 1919, Red Cross nurses in Savannah worked tirelessly from dawn until dusk attending to hundreds of patients as they made their way through the city, taking those too ill to remain at home to various hospitals by the wagonload.

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