Abstract
The title of this book doesn’t do justice to its exciting and challenging contents. Jones recounts the precursors and birth of the American Red Cross (ARC), its development, first under Clara Barton’s leadership during wars, floods, and droughts, and then under the successions of other leaders through World War I, the Great Depression, and New Deal and until the end of World War II. In doing so, she succeeds in weaving several themes through her analysis. She addresses the intersectionality of race, class, and gender, not in freestanding chapters but integrated in her historical overview.
Racial prejudice in the ARC is not overlooked. Jones details the difference in treatment of white victims after the Johnstown flood and the Gullah people who were victims of the Sea Island hurricane. Here and in other locales, blacks were expected to work for aid, while white, formerly middle-class victims received aid without condition. At Johnstown, the ARC believed the “poorer and more hardy” could survive until their homes were rebuilt but those “who never had to struggle before” received immediate help. As late as 1940 when ARC founded the blood bank, headed by Dr. Charles Drew, the African American physician who pioneered the effort, the ARC refused to accept blood from African Americans.
Another theme is the relationship between government and voluntary control of disaster relief. These issues continue to besiege contemporary policy makers. For example, President Grover Cleveland vetoed a Congressional bill to provide funds for drought relief. “ … though the people support the government but the Government should not support the people” (p. 43). This was repeated under President Hoover who vetoed a Senate appropriation of US$25 million to ARC for drought relief. ARC did not see this as its role and Hoover vetoed it, encouraging self-help and individual generosity. Yet, during the New Deal, the ARC worked collaboratively with Harry Hopkins who oversaw the federal disaster relief efforts. Jones concludes that this proved positive for both; the government provided the major work of dam, road, and homebuilding allowing the ARC to supplement that by providing individualized, short-term caring services.
Jones also provides an inside look at intraorganizational conflicts, especially the painful succession from Barton to Boardman in 1902. She explores the class and gender differences between the two women that underlay the power and control issues, resulting in the defeat of an attempt to even accord Barton recognition for her life work after her forced resignation.
Another important theme for social work faculty and practitioners is Jones’ comparisons between the ARC and social work seen through a gender lens. Like the early social workers, Barton combined an independence of spirit and a challenge to traditional gender roles, with an embrace of “domestic values” and the extension of women’s sphere into the world by focusing on “caring, comfort, and compassion.” While Barton began her career tending soldiers in the battlefield (itself a radical act for a woman of the 19th century), she later focused on helping the families of soldiers and those struck by disaster, especially women and children. The author compares Josephine Shaw Lowell’s focus on “scientific charity” movement with Barton’s personalistic, hands-on style. Yet, the ARC focus on individual casework was similar to how social work was practiced. In later years, the ARC called for volunteer “social workers,” who were to make individualized assessment of need, but were not trained professionals.
A short review cannot do justice to this important book which uses a multilayered analysis of critical themes. It should be used in social welfare history, women’s studies, and social and organizational policy courses.