COLUMBIA -- The South Carolina State Museum has been chosen to premiere a national touring exhibition on the history of the American Red Cross. "Our National Treasure: The American Red Cross" opened March 14 and will continue through June 30.

"The exhibit will include an impressive array of artifacts, photographs and personal stories collected over many years," said Director of Exhibits Michael Fey. "We believe it will not only display the past and present of this magnificent life-saving organization, but it will inspire museum guests to become part of its future."

Guests will learn about the 1863 founding of the International Committee of the Red Cross in Geneva, Switzerland, which led to the Geneva Conventions, international treaties to protect the wounded, prisoners of war and civilians in wartime.

The exhibit goes on to cover the founding of the American Association of the Red Cross (now the American Red Cross) in 1881 by Clara Barton, the former Massachusetts schoolteacher and government worker who became famous for her care of wounded soldiers during the Civil War.

A short multi-screen video presentation provides an introduction to the exhibit, which includes such artifacts as a Red Cross armband worn by Clara Barton in 1870-71 on the battlefield in Alsace-Lorraine during the Franco-Prussian war, and a letter Barton wrote to President Abraham Lincoln requesting permission to aid released prisoners and relatives of the dead and missing at the close of the Civil War.

"The exhibition is divided into subject areas which illustrate major functions of the Red Cross, such as disaster services, blood and biomedical services, international services, service to the armed forces and veterans, and health and safety," Fey said.

These

areas will show the various ways in which the Red Cross has aided humanity. This includes nurses who provide medical aid and supplies for the military during wartime as well as blood collection in American cities for a variety of purposes, from planned surgeries to emergencies, to disaster relief from fires, floods and other natural disasters in the United States, to global initiatives by the international organization.

Guests will use touch screens to access quizzes on first aid and CPR knowledge, videos of personal remembrances by Red Cross volunteers and those helped by the Red Cross, plus many photos.

They will see such artifacts as a 1917 canteen wagon, along with a coffee and doughnuts canteen display replicating the snack stations the Red Cross traditionally provides along with blood drives and disaster relief, posters painted by Norman Rockwell and other artists, and more Clara Barton items, including an invitation to the first American Red Cross meeting on May 19, 1881, and a medal Barton received in the Franco-Prussian War.

The Red Cross's blood collection and disaster relief services are its most famous functions, but many other services, from CPR lessons to swimming lessons and life-guard training will be featured in the exhibit.

"Whether it's prisoner-of-war location assistance done for armed service families, baby-sitting instruction or world-wide disaster relief, most people will be surprised that the Red Cross does so much," Fey said.

Sponsors for the exhibit are Blue Cros

s/Blue Shield of South Carolina and AT&T, the Real Yellow Pages. For more information, visit southcarolinastatemuseum.org.

After the exhibit's premiere in Columbia, it will travel nationally.

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