The American Red Cross is an organization created to provide care for those in need. The Red Cross is involved with disaster relief, responding to approximately 70,000 disasters in the United States every year; they support America’s military families, helping an average of 150,000 military families and veterans annually. The Red Cross is also the largest supplier of blood in the U.S., and the nation’s leading provider of health and safety courses.
The American Red Cross played a key role in American history and is a leading charity today. The American Red Cross was founded by Clara Barton a civil war nurse who was inspired by the Swiss Red Cross while she was traveling through Europe was established on May, 21, 1881 in Washington D.C.when she was 60 years old. Clara Barton then continued to lead the American Red Cross for 23 years. (http://www.redcross.org/about-us/history)Clara Barton died on April, 12, 1912.
One of the main roles of the American Red Cross and any Red Cross for that matter is to aid in times of war. The first war the American Red Cross was involved in was the Spanish American war in which they aided the Americans. The Next war they were involved in was World War I which was the first war after they introduced first aid which then gave them an advantage. Another war was World War II during which they established the first nationwide blood program, this later provided almost 50 percent of the blood products and blood in America. As time went on the American Red Cross grew and learned for it’s mistakes and continued to to not only aid America but it’s soldiers and their families during the Korean, Vietnam, and Gulf Wars.
The Red Cross has had an abundance of achievements throughout history, such as in the 1990’s, the Red Cross engineered a massive modernization of our blood services operation to improve the safety of the blood products. They have expanded the services into fields such as civil defense, CPR/AED