Archer W.: How did the Red Cross get its start?
Petula Dvorak: Well, the Red Cross is really important in American disasters. You might even see it in your own neighborhood when there’s a flood or a hurricane. Clara Barton is the one who founded it. She came to Washington, DC, to work in the patent office in 1854. But her life completely changed when the Civil War broke out, and she headed to hospitals and then battlefields as a nurse. She saw how difficult it was to treat wounded soldiers on battlefields. She got wagons full of supplies and brought them in to help, saving hundreds of lives. Throughout the Civil War she traveled up and down the East coast, proving that water, medications, supplies, and food were even more important than weapons in war.
After the Civil War, she traveled to Switzerland and saw the Swiss Red Cross, an organization that specializes in everything she had been doing on the Civil War battlefields. She brought it back to America, and in 1881 she founded the American Red Cross.
Archer W.: Thanks, Petula. That was Petula Dvorak, who writes about history for The Washington Post.
