Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-gvvz8 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-25T17:54:34.311Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Nation Building and Rebuilding: The American Red Cross in Italy During the Great War1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  08 November 2010

Julia F. lrwin
Julia F. lrwin
Affiliation:
Yale University
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

During World War I, hundreds of Americans traveled to Italy as volunteers for the American Red Cross (ARC). Through their relief activities for Italian civilians, these individuals served both diplomatic and social-reform agendas. They packaged medical and social aid with a clear message of American alliance, presenting the ARC as a vanguard of the U.S. military that was prepared to assist Italy's war effort in the absence of American troops. Emphasizing American methods, expertise, and alliance, ARC representatives also enacted reforms with the ambition to mold Italy into their vision of a modern western nation. This article argues that international humanitarian aid buttressed U.S. international involvement, both political and cultural, during the Wilsonian era. Further, by examining the connections between social politics and foreign relations in Italy, it demonstrates that the boundaries of the transatlantic progressive community extended beyond the North Atlantic.

Type
Essays
Information
The Journal of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era , Volume 8 , Issue 3 , July 2009 , pp. 407 - 439
Copyright
Copyright © Society for Historians of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era 2009

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

2 Kellogg, Paul U., Seven Weeks in Italy: The Response of the American Red Cross to the Emergency (Paris, 1918), 25–26.Google Scholar

3 Grayson Murphy to Davison, Henry P., published in the Red Cross Bulletin (U.S. ed.), Jan. 14, 1918, 4Google Scholar.

4 John Dos Passos, Diary, Jan. 1, 1918, in The Fourteenth Chronicle: Letters and Diaries of John Dos Passos, ed. Ludington, Townsend (Boston, 1973), 115–16Google Scholar.

5 Passos, John Dos, 1919 (New York, 1932)Google Scholar; Hemingway, Ernest, A Farewell to Arms (New York, 1929).Google Scholar Hemingway also served in the ARC Ambulance Service in Italy.

6 American Red Cross Annual Report, for the years endingjune 30,1918 and June 30, 1919.

7 Bakewell, Charles M., The Story of the American Red Cross in Italy (New York, 1920), 37.Google Scholar

8 Emily Rosenberg has called the Red Cross and similar organizations as “chosen instruments,” which she defines as “governmentally favored private companies, informally designated to carry out national security functions”; , Rosenberg, Spreading the American Dream: American Economic and Cultural Expansion, 1890–1945 (New York, 1982), 13Google Scholar.

9 For Red Cross organizations as “militarized charities,” see Hutchinson, John F., Champions of Charity: War and the Rise of the Red Cross (Boulder, CO, 1996).Google Scholar Most authors focus on the International Red Cross, rather than on national Red Cross societies; see Berry, Nicholas O., War and the Red Cross: The Unspoken Mission (New York, 1997)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Moorehead, Caroline, Dunant's Dream: War, Switzerland, and the History of the Red Cross (London, 1999).Google Scholar The only book-length text on the ARC's history remains Dulles's, Foster RheaThe American Red Cross: A History (New York, 1950)Google Scholar.

10 Aldrich, Chester A., “Letter to All Delegates,” Aug. 27, 1918,Google Scholar Charles Montague Bakewell Papers, 2004-M-090, Manuscripts and Archives, Yale University (hereafter CMB), box 4, folder 26.

11 William R. Hereford, untitled ms, page 6, Feb. 4, 1918, CMB, folder 30, box 4.

12 Emily S. Rosenberg, Ian Tyrrell, and Victoria de Grazia, among others, have argued that throughout the twentieth century, the U.S. federal government gave increasing financial and political support to international projects originated by private interests. , Rosenberg, Spreading theAmerican DreamGoogle Scholar; , Tyrrell, Woman's World, Woman's Empire: The WCTU in International Perspective, 1880–1930 (Chapel Hill, 1991)Google Scholar; Grazia, de, Irresistible Empire: America's Advance through Twentieth-Century Europe (Cambridge, MA, 2005).Google Scholar For “progressive internationalism,” see Knock, Thomas, To End All Wars: Woodrow Wilson and the Quest for a New World Order (Princeton, 1992)Google Scholar; Dawley, Alan, Changing the World: American Progressives in War and Revolution (Princeton, 2003).Google Scholar Also useful to the U.S. conception of the ARC's ideological role is Melani McAlister's analysis of U.S. “benevolent supremacy.” McAlister focuses on the Middle East after World War II, but it is helpful to consider the roots of this discourse in Great War Europe. , McAlister, Epic Encounters: Culture, Media, and U.S. Interests in the Middle East, 1945–2000 (Berkeley, 2001), esp. ch. 1Google Scholar.

13 Joseph S. Nye coined the term “soft power” in the 1980s to describe diplomacy based on attracting and persuading citizens of other nations rather than coercing them through displays of economic and military superiority. See , Nye, Bound to Lead: The Changing Nature of American Power (New York, 1990)Google Scholar.

14 Louis John Nigro's study on the work of the Committee of Public Information (CPI) in Italy argues that the ARC and the YMCA laid the ground for more intensive CPI activities. , Nigro, New Diplomacy in Italy: American Propaganda and U.S.-Italian Relations, 1917–1919 (New York, 1999).Google Scholar For Wilsonian foreign policy, see link, Arthur Stanley, Wilson the Diplomatist: A Look at His Major Foreign Policies (Baltimore, 1957)Google Scholar; Ambrosius, Lloyd E., Wilsonianism: Woodrow Wilson and His Legacy in American Foreign Relations (New York, 2002)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Kennedy, David M., Over Here: The First World War and American Society (New York, 1982).Google Scholar For Italian-American relations in World War I and the 1920s, see Melograni, Piero, Storia politico della grande guerra (Bari, Italy, 1969)Google Scholar; Saiu, Liliana, Stati Uniti e Italia nella grande guerra, 1914–1918 (Florence, 2003)Google Scholar; Rossini, Daniela, America riscopre l'Italia: I'inquiry di Wilson e le origini della questione Adriatica, 1917–1919 (Rome, 1992)Google Scholar.

15 “Report of the Department of Medical Affairs,” issued by the ARC Department of Public Information, Rome, Nov. 1, 1918, CMB, folder 45, box 5.

16 And for good reason. In the early twentieth century, the ARC reorganized and began to hire many of its leaders from charity-organization societies, health and welfare philanthropies, and prominent schools of nursing and social work. In 1908, the ARC recruited Ernest P. Bicknell, general secretary of the Chicago Bureau of Associated Charities, to become its national director. During the war, many notable progressive reformers worked for the ARC in Italy and elsewhere in Europe, including Edward T. Devine, director of the New York School of Philanthropy; Homer Folks, secretary of the New York State Charities Aid Association; Paul U. Kellogg, editor of the Survey; and Jane Delano, director of the Bellevue Hospital Training School for Nurses. The ARC must be understood as a product of this intellectual milieu. For the scientific-charity movement in Chicago, New York, and nationally, see Recchiuti, John Louis, Civic Engagement: Social Science and Progressive-Era Reform in New York City (Philadelphia, 2006)Google Scholar; Friedman, Lawrence J., ed., Charity, Philanthropy, and Civility in American History (Cambridge, 2002)Google Scholar; Bremmer, Robert H., American Philanthropy (Chicago, 1988)Google Scholar.

17 Rodgers, Daniel T., Atlantic Crossings: Social Politics in a Progressive Age (Cambridge, MA, 1998).Google Scholar

18 Snowden, Frank M., The Conquest of Malaria: Italy, 1900–1962 (New Haven, 2006)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Vicarelli, Giovanna, Alle radid deltapolitico sanitaria in Italia (Bologna, 1997)Google Scholar; Cosmacini, Giorgio, Storia della medidna e della sanitd in Italia: dallapeste europea alia guerra mondiale, 1348–1918 (Rome, 1992); andGoogle Scholar, Cosmacini, Medidni e sanita in Italia nel ventesimo secolo: dalla “spagnola” alia 2d guerra mondiale (Bari, 1989)Google Scholar.

19 For the growth of international public health in this period, see Weindling, Paul, ed., International Health Organisations and Movements, 1918–1939 (Cambridge, 1995)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Weindling, Paul, Epidemics and Genocide in Eastern Europe, 1890–1945 (Oxford, 2000)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Anderson, Warwick, Colonial Pathologies: American Tropical Medidne, Race, and Hygiene in the Philippines (Durham, NC, 2006)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Birn, Anne-Emmanuelle, Marriage of Convenience: Rockefeller International History and Revolutionary Mexico (Rochester, NY, 2006)Google Scholar.

20 My thinking about American occupations in the period has been influenced by Renda, Mary, Taking Haiti: Military Occupation and the Culture of U.S. Imperialism, 1915–1940 (Chapel Hill, 2001)Google Scholar; Findlay, Eileen Suarez, Imposing Decency: The Politics of Sexuality and Race in Puerto Rico, 1870–1920 (Durham, NC, 2000)Google Scholar; , Anderson, Colonial PathologiesGoogle Scholar; Wexler, Laura, Tender Violence: Domestic Visions in an Age of U.S. Imperialism (Chapel Hill, 2000)Google Scholar.

21 Amy Fairchild and Thomas Guglielmo, among others, have argued that although U.S. citizens perceived Italians as a definite Other, reformers tended to regard them as easily assimilable. Fairchild, Amy, Science at the Borders: Immigrant Medical Inspection and the Shaping of the Modern Industrial Labor Force (Baltimore, 2003)Google Scholar; Guglielmo, Thomas A., White on Arrival: Italians, Race, Color, and Power in Chicago, 1890–1945 (Oxford, 2004)Google Scholar.

22 “Red Cross Commission to Italy” Red Cross Bulletin (U.S. ed.), Aug. 1917Google Scholar; William R Hereford, unpublished ms., CMB, folder 30, box 4.

23 Thomas Nelson Page to Grayson Murphy, Nov. 3, 1917, CMB, folder 14; Murphy to Henry P. Davison, Nov. 11, 1917, folder 28, box 4.

24 Grayson Murphy to Henry P. Davison, Nov. 11,1917, CMB, folder 28, box 4.

25 “Red Cross Raises American Flag from One End of Italy to the Other,” Red Cross Bulletin (U.S. ed.), Jan. 14, 1918.Google Scholar

26 For Page's views, see his Italy and the War (New York, 1920)Google Scholar and , Nigro, New Diplomacy in Italy.Google Scholar Salandra became prime minister in March 1914 after the Liberal prime minister Giovanni Giolitti stepped down. Although Salanda, too, claimed to represent a Liberal faction, he was a staunch nationalist in practice. The Italian people were quite divided on the issue of intervention. Giolitti supporters and Catholics, too, tended to endorse continued neutrality. While most Socialists rejected the “Imperialist War,” a faction led by Mussolini urged intervention. Many Italian conservatives and nationalists favored intervention. Those in favor, however, were divided on whether Italy should join the Central Powers or the Anglo-French alliance. In secret meetings with both sides, Salandra and Sonnino received promises of great strategic territorial gains from Britain and France in the Trentino and South Tyrol regions of Austria and several strategic points off the Dalmatian coastline to Italy's east. These promises ultimately pushed Salandra and Sonnino to intervene on the side of the British-French alliance. They signed the London Pact on April 26, 1915, to the dismay of the majority of the Italian peasantry who were hostile to the war, as well as to Giolittians, Catholics, and Socialists who remained neutralists. Burgwyn, H. James, The Legend of the Mutilated Victory: Italy, the Great War, and the Paris Peace Conference, 1915–1919 (Westport, CT, 1993)Google Scholar; Clark, Martin, Modern Italy, 1871–1982 (New York, 1980)Google Scholar; Smith, Denis Mack, Italy: A Modern History (Ann Arbor, 2002)Google Scholar.

27 Alexander Lambert, Report to James H. Perkins, “Trip to Italy, November 9th to 29th, 1917,” Records of the American Red Cross Commission to Italy, Record Group 200, box 880, 954.06, National Archives, College Park, Maryland (hereafter ARCCI).

28 Gorham Phillips Stevens, Report to Carl Taylor, “Report on Sardinia,” CMB, box 4, folder 28.

29 B. Harvey Carroll, memo, Nov. 11, 1917; Alexander Lambert to James H. Perkins, “Trip to Italy, November 9th to 29th, 1917,” ARCCI, box 880, 954.06.

30 “Red Cross Raises American Flag from One End of Italy to the Other,” Red Cross Bulletin (U.S. ed.), Jan. 14, 1918Google Scholar; Horton, Kate E., “Solving Italy's Refugee Problem,” unpublished ms., Sept. 10, 1918,Google Scholar CMB, box 6, folder 57.

31 Edward Hunt, Report to Grayson Murphy, Nov. 16, 1917, CMB, box 4, folder 28.

32 Harvey B. Carroll to Carl Taylor, Nov. 12, 1917, ARCCI, box 883, 954.62.

33 This guess was certainly accurate. For one example of criticism on spending, see correspondence between Howard E. Wurlitzer and F. P. Keppel, Nov. and Dec, 1919, box 884, 954.91, ARCCI.

34 For this argument, see Elizabeth Frazer, interview with Murphy, Grayson M.-P., “With the Red Cross in Italy: The Story of the Big Retreat,” Saturday Evening Post, Feb. 9, 1918, 27–37Google Scholar.

35 “Why the Red Cross Needs a War Fund of $100,000,000,” 1917; “What the Red Cross Is Doing in Europe,” containing remarks by Grayson Murphy to the Atlantic Division of the ARC, Jan. 23,1918; “Information Regarding the Obligations of the ARC to the Armed Forces of the United States,” 1916; Miscellaneous Pamphlets on the European War, American Red Cross, Sterling Memorial Library, Yale University, call number Bi66 858dc.

36 B. Harvey Carroll to Edward Hunt, Report, CMB, box 5, folder 56.

37 Baker, Charles M., “Impressions of the American Red Cross Commission to Italy,” Red Cross Magazine, Jan. 1918, 39–44.Google Scholar

38 William R. Hereford, untitled ms, Feb. 4, 1918, CMB, box 4, folder 30.

39 The American Red Cross Annual Report, for the years ending June 30, 1918 and June 30, 1919.

40 “Red Cross Raises American Flag from One End of Italy to the Other,” Red Cross Bulletin (U.S. ed), Jan. 14, 1918.Google Scholar

41 Mabel Boardman, secretary and de facto chief of the ARC since 1905, scaled back her own participation at the outbreak of the war. In 1915, she convinced her good friend William H. Taft to take over executive responsibilities and become the chairman of the Central and Executive Committees. With Woodrow Wilson's 1917 appointment of the War Council, female leadership was relegated increasingly to activities considered suitable for women, and executive decisions were reserved for men involved in business or professional charity work. See letters exchanged between William H. Taft and Mabel T. Boardman, Mabel T. Boardman Papers, Library of Congress, boxes 7 and 8,.

42 Hungerford, Edward, “The Business Side of the Red Cross,” Red Cross Magazine, Dec. 1918, 20–25.Google Scholar

43 Department of Public Information of the American Red Cross, “A Brief Survey of the Work of the American Red Cross in Italy from Its Beginnings up to March 1918,” Mar. 31, 1918, CMB, box 4, folder 30. The U.S. War Department approved the use of these military ranks to make it easier for ARC representatives to maneuver through restricted war zones. It also authorized ARC members to wear U.S. uniforms, creating an appearance of U.S. military presence wherever the ARC went. However, these ranks did not make ARC members commissioned officers, nor did it subject them to military control. “The Use of Military Titles by American Red Cross Officers,” Red Cross Bulletin (U.S. ed), Aug. 20, 1917Google Scholar.

44 Dock, Lavinia, History of American Red Cross Nursing (New York, 1922), 862.Google Scholar

45 Department of Public Information, “Suggestions to Delegates,” 1918, andGoogle ScholarAldrich, Chester, Memo “To All Delegates,” Aug. 27, 1918,Google Scholar CMB, box 4, folder 26.

46 In 1918, the term “propaganda” carried a much less negative connotation than it would after World War II. I will use the term throughout this paper as it was used in its time, and I do not necessarily intend it to carry its more dubious connotations. For U.S. propaganda efforts, see Creel, George, How We Advertised America (New York, 1920)Google Scholar; Mock, J. R. and Larsen, Cedric, Words that Won the War: The Story of the Committee on Public Information (Princeton, 1939)Google Scholar; , Nigro, New Diplomacy in ItalyGoogle Scholar; , Vaughn, Holding Fast the Inner Liner,Google ScholarWolper, Gregg, “Wilsonian Public Diplomacy: The Committee of Public Information in Spain,” Diplomatic History 17 (Winter 1993): 17–34;CrossRefGoogle Scholar, Kennedy, Over HereGoogle Scholar.

47 Department of Public Information, “Suggestions to Delegates,” 1918,Google Scholar CMB, box 4, folder 26.

48 La Piccola America, May 1918Google Scholar; William Hereford to M. J. MacDonough, May 23, 1918, CMB, box 5, folder 42.

49 For the history of the Piazza del Campidoglio, see Trachtenberg, Marvin and Hyman, Isabelle, Architecture, from Prehistory to Post-Modernism: The Western Tradition (New York, 1986), 313–14Google Scholar.

50 “I1 Contributo Americano per la Guerra,” La Giornale d'ltalia (Rome), Jan. 16, 1918.Google Scholar

51 This was intended, but never entirely true. Many of the commission's leaders received no compensation, but some were paid living expenses. Some who worked in the ARC administration also received small salaries.

52 Marconi, Guglielmo, “In Onore della Croce Rossa Americana,” Jan. 15, 1915,Google Scholar CMB, box 5, folder 45.

53 William R. Hereford, unpublished ms., Feb. 4, 1918, CMB, box 4, folder 30.

54 Hereford, William R., “Carrying America's Message to the Italian Front,” 1918,Google Scholar CMB, box 6, folder 62.

55 This represented about 5 percent of the Commission's budget for the year. See the American Red Cross Annual Report, for the years ending June 30, 1918 and June 30, 1919.

56 Horton, Kate H., “The Big Drive of the American Red Cross,” June 18, 1918,Google Scholar CMB, box 6, folder 62.

57 “Report on Distribution of Funds for Propaganda at Ancona,” Apr. 8, 1918Google Scholar; “Report on Iesi, Osimo, and Macharata,” Apr. 13, 1918; “Report of Trip, Captains Carroll and Stevens, Tolentino, San Severino, Camerino, and Recanati,” Apr. 14, 1918; “Report of Distribution of Funds to the Needy Families of Italian Soldiers in the Provinces of Forli, Pesaro, Ancona, and Macerata, April 4th to April 15th, 1918,” Apr. 15, 1918; “Report of Trip to the Abruzzi and Puglia, May 3 to May 14, 1918,” May 15, 1918; Hereford, William R., “Carrying America's Message to the Italian Front,” 1918,Google Scholar CMB, box 6, folder 62.

58 Edward T. Devine to Carl Taylor, Dec. 8, 1917, ARCCI, box 880, 954.101.

59 B. Harvey Carroll, report to the American Red Cross Commission to Italy, Feb. 25, 1918; Carroll to Chester Aldrich, Feb. 26, 1918, CMB, box 5, folder 56.

60 Horton, Kate E., “Solving Italy's Refugee Problem,” unpublished ms., Sept. 10, 1918,Google Scholar CMB, box 6, folder 57.

61 “The American City at Pisa,” Red Cross Bulletin (Italy, ed), July 20, 1918, 2.Google Scholar For hygienic housing, see Tomes, Nancy, The Gospel of Germs: Men, Women, and the Microbe in American Life (Cambridge, MA, 1995), ch. 2Google Scholar.

62 B. Harvey Carroll, report to the American Red Cross Commission to Italy, Feb. 25, 1918; Carroll to Chester Aldrich, Feb. 26, 1918, CMB, box 5, folder 56.

63 “A Red Cross City in Italy,” Red Cross Magazine, Oct. 1, 1918.Google Scholar

64 E. O. Bartlett to Chester Aldrich, Nov. 2, 1918, ARCCI, box 882, 954.47.

65 Edward D. Self to Henry P. Davison, Nov. 12, 1919; Chester Aldrich to F. P. Keppel, Dec. 11,1919, ARCCI, box 884, 954.91; Francesco Mauro, unpublished narrative, 1919, CMB, box 5, folder 56.

66 Approximately 64 percent of these funds went to the Department of Civilian Affairs, 13 percent each to the Department of Medical Affairs and the Department of Military Affairs, 7 percent to administration, 1 percent to the Department of Tuberculosis, and the remainder to miscellaneous groups. Account Ledger, CMB, box 1.

67 , Bakewell, The Story of the American Red Cross in Italy, 37.Google Scholar

68 Aldrich, Chester, Bartlett, E. O., and Fabbri, Ernesto G., “Department of Civil Affairs, American Red Cross in Italy, January 1, 1918—March 1, 1919”Google Scholar; “Report of the Department of Military Affairs”; both published by the ARC Department of Public Information, 1919.

69 William R. Hereford, undated report, CMB, box 4, folder 30; “Young Italian Soldiers Off for the War Cheer America,” Red Cross Bulletin (U.S. ed.), Jan. 21, 1918Google Scholar; Gribble, G. D., “With a Rolling Canteen on the Piave,” Aug. 6, 1918,Google Scholar CMB, box 6, folder 60.

70 Elizabeth Frazer, interview with Grayson M.-P. , Murphy, “With the Red Cross in Italy: The Story of the Big Retreat,” Saturday Evening Post, Feb. 9, 1918, 37Google Scholar.

71 Commission officials budgeted most of their money to feed, clothe, house, and employ refugees and the families of soldiers and to provide hospital supplies, ambulances, and material relief to the Italian military. Account Ledger, CMB, box 1.

72 American public-health reformers began increasingly to introduce sanitary reforms and wage campaigns against epidemic diseases throughout Europe and globally during this period. See Farley, John, To Cast Out Disease: A History of the International Health Division of the Rockefeller Foundation, 1913–1951 (Oxford, 2004)Google Scholar; Stern, Alexandra Minna, “Buildings, Boundaries, and Blood: Medicalization and Nation-Building on the U.S.-Mexico Border,” Hispanic American Historical Review 79 (Feb. 1999), 41–81;Google ScholarPubMedAnderson, Warwick, Colonial PathologiesGoogle Scholar; , Birn, Marriage of ConvenienceGoogle Scholar.

73 Detti, T., “Stato, guerra e tuberculosi (1915–1922)” in Malattia e medicinia, Storia d'ltalia, Annali n. 7 (Torino, 1984).Google Scholar

74 , Snowden, The Conquest of Malaria.Google Scholar

75 Reverby, Susan M., Ordered to Care: The Dilemma of American Nursing (Cambridge, 1987).Google Scholar

76 , Rodgers, Atlantic Crossings.Google Scholar

77 For contemporary sites of intervention, see , Renda, Taking HaitiGoogle Scholar; , Findlay, Imposing Decency,Google Scholar, Anderson, Colonial PathologiesGoogle Scholar.

78 Edna Foley, report on“Future of the Section of Public Health Nursing” to William Charles White, May 16, 1919, ARCCI, box 881, 954.11/08.

79 Gardner, Mary S., “Report of the Commission for Tuberculosis, American Red Cross in Italy: Supplementary Report of Nursing Section,” 1919,Google Scholar ARCCI, box 879, 954.08.

80 Collins, Joseph, My Italian Year: Observations and Reflections in Italy during the Last Year of the War (New York, 1919), 9.Google Scholar

81 , Aldrich, “Circular Letter to All Delegates,” Oct. 9, 1918,Google Scholar CMB, box 4, folder 26.

82 See Grazia, de, Irresistible Empire.Google Scholar

83 Many European countries had campaigned against TB before the war, only to see its rapid resurgence after 1914. See Barnes, David, The Making of a Social Disease: Tuberculosis in Nineteenth Century France (Berkeley, 1995)Google Scholar; Cosmacini, Giorgio, La peste Bianca: Milano e la lotta antitubenolare (1882–1945) (Milano, 2004)Google Scholar; Bryder, Iinda, Below the Magic Mountain: A Social History of Tuberculosis in Britain (Oxford, 1994)Google Scholar.

84 White, William Charles, “General Report of the Commission for Tuberculosis, American Red Cross in Italy” 1919,Google Scholar box 879, 954.08, ARCCI.

85 For antituberculosis work in th e United States, see, for example, Feldberg, Georgina, Disease and Class (New Brunswick, 1995)Google Scholar; , Tomes, The Gospel of Germs, ch. 5, 9Google Scholar.

86 American Red Cross Commission to Italy, “Report of the Department of Medical Affairs,” Nov. 1918,Google Scholar CMB, box 5, folder 45.

87 William Charles White, future chair of the National Tuberculosis Association of America, headed the organization. His co-chair was R. H. Bishop Jr., public health commissioners of Cleveland and founder of the antituberculosis movement in Ohio. Other notable names included John H. Lowman, a U.S. physician, Douglass, Stephen A., superintendent of the Ohio State Tuberculosis sanatorium, and Paterson, Robert G., secretary of the Ohio State Antituberculosis League. “Tuberculosis Unit Reaches Italy,” Red Cross Bulletin (Italy, ed.), Oct. 1918Google Scholar.

88 “Italian Tuberculosis Unit Organized and Will Sail in Few Weeks,” Red Cross Bulletin (U.S. ed.), Sept. 1918.Google Scholar

89 Several members of the Department of Tuberculosis criticized the leadership's decision t o emphasize education over relief. See H. H. Jacobs, Address to the Milwaukee Chapter of the American Red Cross, Mar. 18, 1919, ARCCI, box 881, 954.108.

90 Women volunteers staffed many canteens and rest houses or oversaw Italian women workers, but the ARC nursing school and Child Health Bureau were the only sites in which female American professionals possessed significant autonomy during war. As they worked to prove themselves to Italian women, U.S. nurses strove to prove their strength to men at home. Mary Gardner, for example, wrote to the U.S. head of ARC nursing that she had recently asked for a reduction in salary to help with wartime conservation, but only after three months at a higher salary, necessary to establish “the precedent that a woman's work was of equal value with a man's.” Mary S. Gardner to Jane A. Delano, Dec. 30,1918, ARRCI, box 881, 954.11/08.

91 Pauline Jordan to Jane Delano, Dec. 7,1917; Clara D. Noyes to Sarah Shaw, Nov. 28,1917, in , Dock, History of American Red Cross Nursing, 860–62Google Scholar.

92 Anne Marie Rafferty, “Internationalising Nursing Education During the Interwar Period” in , Weindling, International Health Organisations, 266–82Google Scholar.

93 A third school was scheduled to open in Florence in November, but was never completed.

94 Gardner, Mary S., “Report of the Commission for Tuberculosis, American Red Cross in Italy: Supplementary Report of Nursing Section,” 1919,Google Scholar ARCCI, box 879, 954.08.

95 , Reverby, Ordered to Care.Google Scholar

96 For more on child health in the 1920s, see Rogers, Naomi, “Vegetables on Parade: American Medicine and the Child Health Movement in the Jazz Age” in Children's Health Issues in Historical Perspective, ed. Warsh, Cheryl (Waterloo, ON, 2005)Google Scholar; Hutchinson, John F., “Promoting Child Health in the 1920s: International Politics and the Limits of Humanitarianism” in The Politics of the Healthy Life: An International Perspective, ed. Rodriguez-Ocana, Esteban (Sheffield, 2002)Google Scholar; Cooter, Roger, ed., In the Name of the Child: Health and Welfare, 1880–1940 (London, 1992)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

97 “Report of the Department of Medical Affairs,” 1918,Google Scholar CMB, box 5, folder 45.

98 “Report of the Children's Health Bureau,” Jan. 15, 1919,Google Scholar ARCCI, box 881, 954.11/08. Rural public-health, and nursing education in Italy mirrored contemporary introduction of“scientific mothering” in the United States, where ARC home hygiene departments and health and social-work professionals reached out to women to instruct them on modern mothering techniques. For “scientific motherhood,” see Apple, Rima, Mothers and Medicine: A Social History of Infant Feeding, 1890–1950 (Madison, 1987),Google Scholar and Vitamania: Vitamins in American Culture (New Brunswick, NJ, 1996)Google Scholar; Grant, Julia, Raising Baby by the Book: The Education of American Mothers (New Haven, 1998)Google Scholar; Ladd-Taylor, Molly, Mother-Work: Women, Child Welfare, and the State, 1890–1930 (Urbana, 1994)Google Scholar; Leavitt, Sarah A., From Catharine Beecher to Martha Stewart: A Cultural History of Domestic Advice (Chapel Hill, 2002)Google Scholar.

99 W. C. White to E. O. Bartlett, re: “Continuation of the Tuberculosis Work in Italy–Nursing Division,” June 2, 1919, ARCCI, box 881, 954.11/08Google Scholar.

100 Gardner, speech to Italian nurses touring U.S. medical establishments, Aug. 1921, ARCCI, box 883, 954.52.

101 Edna Foley to Clara Noyes, Dec. 9, 1919, box 881, ARCCI, 954.11/08.

102 Chadsey, Mildred, “Work Started by American Red Cross in Italy Lives on Today,” unpublished ms, 1919,Google Scholar ARCCI., box 880, 954.101

103 “War Orphans in Italy,” Junior Red Cross Project No. 12, Oct. 12, 1919,Google Scholar ARCCI, box.

104 For the new focus on the “normal child,” see Patricia T. Rooke and Rudy L. Schnell, ‘“Uncramping Child Life’: International Children's Organisations, 1914–1939” in , Weindling, International Health Organisations, 176–202.Google Scholar For playgrounds, see Cavallo, Dominick, Muscles and Morals: Organised Playgrounds and Urban Reform, 1880–1920 (Philadelphia, 1981).Google Scholar For health education, see , Tomes, The Gospelof Germs.Google Scholar For city planning, see , Rodgers, Atlantic Crossings. professionalization of social work in this period, seeGoogle ScholarEhrenreich, John H., Altruistic Imagination: A History of Social Work and Social Policy in the United States (Ithaca, NY, 1985)Google Scholar.

105 White, William Charles, “Report of the Commission for Tuberculosis, American Red Cross in Italy: Supplementary Report on Public Instruction in Italy,” 1919,Google Scholar ARCCI, box 879, folder 954.08.

106 “Red Cross Must Continue to Represent the Heart of America,” Red Cross Bulletin (U.S. ed), Nov. 18, 1918.Google Scholar

107 S Fuller, amuel, Letter “to all delegates and heads of departments,” Jan. 13, 1919,Google Scholar CMB, box 4, folder 26.

108 Many historians have written about Wilson and the “Adriatic Question” over Italian territories at the Paris Peace Conference. See , Nigro, New Diplomacy in ItalyGoogle Scholar; , Rossini, America Riscopre I'ltalia; Saiu, Stati Uniti e Italia nella Grande GuerraGoogle Scholar.

109 William Charles White to Edward Hunt regarding “Continuation of our work in Italy,” May 20, 1919,Google Scholar ARCCI, box 881, 954.11/08.

110 , Snowden, The Conquest of Malaria, 140–41.Google Scholar

111 Elsie Graves Benedict to R. P. Lane, June 17, 1921, ARCCI, box 881, 954.11/01.

112 Edna Foley to Clara Noyes, Dec. 9, 1919; H. H. Jacobs, Address to the Milwaukee Chapter of the American Red Cross, Mar. 18, 1919, ARCCI, box 881, 954.108.

113 , Tyrrell, Woman's World, Woman's Empire, 2.Google Scholar

114 E. O. Bartlett to E. W White, Dec. 2, 1919, ARCCI, box 882, 954.11/101.

115 Grazia, De, Irresistible EmpireGoogle Scholar; , Nye, Bound to LeadGoogle Scholar.

116 , Rodgers, Atlantic Crossings.Google Scholar