The Dane County chapter of the American Red Cross, founded in 1905, is a pioneer in first aid work and one of the oldest chartered Red Cross chapters in the United States.
The international Red Cross was founded in Geneva in 1864. In 1881 the American National Association was incorporated with Clara Barton, a former Civil War nurse, as president. In 1900 the organization was reincorporated by act of Congress as the American Red Cross. Then in 1905 it was approved by President Theodore Roosevelt as the official national disaster agency. Almost immediately thereafter a chapter was formed in Dane County, Wisconsin by James C. Elsom of the University of Wisconsin Department of Physical Education. The Dane County chapter was incorporated in 1909.
There was no chapter office during the organization's early history, and most of the original records have since disappeared. Consequently little is known about the activities of the period. It is known, however, that Dr. Elsom began teaching his students first aid in 1905 and that first aid remained the chief local program for many years.
The history and growth of the chapter closely parallels the story of the national Red Cross. With the establishment of Red Cross service to the military a local home service to the families of servicemen began. Like the national program, the local chapter ran a safety program and taught nursing skills to wives and mothers. Volunteer nurses aides were organized in 1918 as health aides. The Blood Donor Service began in 1941 when the Surgeon General of the Army and Navy requested the American Red Cross and the National Research Council to cooperate in collecting human blood for processing into dried plasma to be used in military medical departments against traumatic shock. In 1950 the Badger Regional Blood Center of Dane County opened, and Mary Rennebohm, the wife of the Wisconsin governor, gave the first pint of blood.
The Junior Red Cross was born in 1917 during a teachers' meeting in Agriculture Hall on the University of Wisconsin campus. After World War I the Junior organization lapsed, although it was revived in 1940 and thousands of blood program bottles were prepared by the Dane County chapter during World War II.
Additional information may be found in Our First Fifty Years: A Mid-Century Review, 1909-1959.
