Existing comment:
International Relief Organizer
While in Europe after the Civil War, Barton observed the relief operations of the International Red Cross during the Franco-Prussian war, which broke out in 1870. She learned about their methods of organization, transportation, and storage, and she herself assisted by distributing relief supplies and clothing, and helping to set up hospitals for displaced civilians. Her experiences laid the foundation for her later efforts to establish the Red Cross in the United States, and of her conviction that it should assist in times of peace as well as in war.
On a global scale, the Barton-led the American Red Cross responded to the crisis of the famine in Russia in 1892, the Armenian massacre in Turkey in 1896, and the Spanish-American War in Cuba in 1898. The Geneva Conventions guaranteed that the relief workers were considered neutral and could not be prevented from doing their work. This tenant is central to the foundation of international humanitarian law.
Barton encouraged the scope of the International Red Cross to be expanded from primarily a war-related humanitarian effort to encompass natural disasters as well. In the United States, the Red Cross assisted with relief efforts in all parts of the country, including after the Mississippi river floods of 1882 and 1884, the Charleston, South Carolina, earthquake in 1886, the Johnstown, Pennsylvania, flood of 1889, the Sea Islands of South Carolina and Georgia hurricane of 1893, and the Galveston, Texas, hurricane of 1900. Relief efforts included food, shelter and clothing, as well as medical care and support. |