Johnstown, Pennsylvania: May 1889

A flooded town in western Pennsylvania exemplified the dedication and power that Clara Barton held as President of the American Red Cross. She called for supplies and organized various forms of help to rebuild the town, restore the energy, and renew the faith of the townspeople.

When a dam broke north of Johnstown, Pennsylvania in May of 1889, Barton packed various belongings and headed north to assess the damage.  In Johnstown, she found a disaster area caused by a flood that left many of the town residents dead and displaced.  Barton took pictures and sent them to newspapers, in order to show people what happened and encourage supplies to be sent to help out.[1]  Other relief organizations came to Johnstown as well, including the Army and various church groups.  Barton, using wood she collected, had four long hotels built to house the homeless and store supplies.  In these hotels, people cooked and slept while the clean up was being done and houses repaired; her goal was to encourage people not to leave Johnstown and start new elsewhere, but to stay, rebuild, and give Johnstown another chance.

Wreckage in front of St. John’s Catholic Church, which burned down the night of the flood in Johnstown

Barton’s domestic role in Johnstown provided housing to all who were displaced by flood waters, first with the building of the Red Cross hotel, and then with the dismantling of the same buildings once families were able to move out on their own.  Building the hotel kept people and businesses in Johnstown, creating potential for it to be rebuilt.  Then, taking down the hotel forced people to rebuild their own homes and start new.  While Barton could have left the hotels up, that would have failed to encourage the town clean up and build a new Johnstown, but instead to be dependent for an undetermined number of years.  While the families of Johnstown were displaced, Barton provided the motherly duty of supplying meals to local residents as well. She was concerned for the future of her families, staying long enough to encourage new birth, but wanting Johnstown to survive on its own strength and not the strength of the Red Cross.

Inside a Red Cross Warehouse in Johnstown, which stored supplies for victims of the floods

The exterior of a Red Cross Hotel in Johnstown, PA. This was hotel number two, located on Locust Street