Harrison Fisher, 1918
The Red Cross nurse was considered a heroine, in fact and fiction. During World War I, the Red Cross enrolled 29,000 professional nurses, and 20,000 of these served with the military. In France alone, Red Cross personnel staffed twenty-four base hospitals that were operated jointly with the army. These hospitals treated nearly 92,000 wounded soldiers. The working conditions were often primitive, and the hours long and exhausting. The stamina and dedication of the Red Cross nurses became legendary, and inspired popular songs such as The Rose of No Man's Land and novels like Ernest Hemingway's A Farewell to Arms.
For his December, 1918 poster, Have you answered the Red Cross Christmas Roll Call?, Harrison Fisher portrayed the romantic and heroic image of the Red Cross nurse.
