First local American Red Cross Society organized in Dansville, New York (1881)
Clara Barton first visited Dansville, New York in December of 1866 to give a lecture in order to raise funds for the Office of Correspondence. She maintained a home in Dansville for ten years from 1876 to 1886. Before the United States Congress could ratify the articles of the Red Cross treaty, her neighbors and friends in Dansville established the first local society of the American Red Cross on August 22, 1881, with fifty-seven signatures on the charter.
Dr. Julian B. Hubbell
Dr. Julian B. Hubbell, the first American Red Cross field representative, traveled to Michigan to survey the relief work following the great Michigan forest fires of the summer of 1881. In 1892, Clara Barton sent Hubbell to Russia, where he supervised the distribution of tons of wheat, corn, rye, and medical supplies in the first international relief effort of the American Red Cross.
As a young man, Hubbell had asked his good friend Clara Barton what he could do to help her start a Red Cross. She responded by advising him to become a doctor, and so he did.
First-Known Red Cross Youth Activity (1884)
As flood waters raged along the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers in 1884, six children initiated the first known American Red Cross youth activity in Waterford, Pennsylvania. The children produced a play in their town and raised $50.00 which Clara Barton reportedly used to help a large family that suffered greatly from the flood. In the letter accompanying their contribution, the children wrote: "Sometime again when you want money to help you in your good work, call on the Little Six."
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