What do
you think?
Email us at
editor@
nurseweek.com

Related
site

American
Red Cross

By Barbara Tone, RN
December 27, 1999
Photo Courtesy of the American Red Cross

The Red Cross Nursing Service was formally established by Jane Delano in 1909, but nurses were an integral part of the Red Cross long before then. Nurses were used for disaster relief beginning in the 1880s, but recruitment of nurses into the Red Cross began in earnest with the Spanish American War in 1898. Seven hundred of the 1,500 nurses who served during in the Spanish American War were Red Cross recruits.

By 1912, three years after the formation of the Red Cross Nursing Service, there were 3,000 nurses in the Red Cross reserve. In World Wars I and II, the American Red Cross carried a major responsibility for recruiting nurses for the Army and the Navy. In World War I, the Red Cross provided two of every three Navy nurses and four of every five Army nurses, including the first African American nurses. The Red Cross continued to be a main support during World War II, providing a majority of the 77,800 nurses who served.

Though Red Cross nursing has strong roots in wartime activity, the Red Cross Nursing Service of today has influence far beyond its origins. Red Cross nurses, now numbering 40,000 volunteers and paid staff, provide direct services through disaster relief, blood collection, health fairs, and volunteer work in military clinics and hospitals. They develop and teach courses on topics such as first aid and CPR, and work to coordinate Red Cross activities nationally and internationally.

“Nurses have been integral to the provision of services by the Red Cross since the days of Clara Barton,” said Nancy McKelvey, MSN, RN, chief nurse for the American Red Cross. “Today, nurses still work in all our lines of service and bring their service orientation, professional credibility, and public trust to whatever they do with the Red Cross.”