During the Civil War, North Oxford, Massachusetts native Clara Barton became expert at gathering and delivering relief materials to union soldiers. After the war she helped locate 20,000 missing soldiers, personally answereing 60,000 letters requesting her assistance.

Once aquainted with the International Red Cross, she became a ceaseless advocate to form its U.S. Branch, which required acceptance of the Geneva Convention. She facilitated approval of that treaty, and established the American Red Cross on this day in Washington, D.C.

By 1904 dissension within the Red Cross and public scrutiny led Barton to resign from her role as the volunteer President of the American Red Cross, a role she fulfilled for its first two decades of operation.