Founding of the Hartford Chapter: 1906-1914

The Hartford Chapter came into existence after Clara Barton’s resignation from the Red Cross. Due to Mabel Boardman’s organization efforts, the Red Cross received a second congressional charter in 1905 to reflect its reorganization.  Early organization of the Hartford Red Cross chapters went by the name “Division of the State Branch,” and largely came about due to Mabel Boardman. They held their first recorded meeting on April 28, 1906 and established a permanent local division. At the time of the first meeting 15 life members and 183 annual members belonged to the chapter. Later, chairmen were appointed for the neighboring towns, largely assisted by Mabel Boardman.

The first Chairman of the Hartford chapter was Robert W. Huntington, Jr. and he held the position until 1916. Immediately following its establishment, the Hartford chapter of the Red Cross leapt into fundraising, raising money for various natural disaster relief aid until the war broke out in 1914. Until the war broke out, the Hartford chapter concentrated solely on its fundraising activities, in the end raising $5500 for the Red Cross Endowment fund. When the war came, fundraising remained a huge component of the Red Cross activities, but it began to diversify due to necessity.

In August of 1914, an assassination in Europe changed the course of world history. The largest war in human history at the time began and the Red Cross and its chapters sprang to attention. Within days of the war's start, Robert Huntington was approached by a Mrs. Mary Montieth Keller, a prominent Hartford woman anxious to begin war work. Immediately, the chapter sprang into action, organizing committees developed to cover all wartime needs and quarters were reserved on Pearl Street with the aid of the Connecticut General Insurance Company. 

In the early days of the war, the Chapter concerned itself with the organization of supplies that they later shipped to hospitals throughout Europe. The bulk of the Hartford Chapter's war work concerned itself with Military Relief, spearheaded by Mrs. Keller. Yet, as the war went on, the chapters expanded into different committees and sub-committees and the Nursing Service formed with two prominent women, Ida F. Butler and Helen Jones as the heads. Miss. Butler was the first chairman from 1916-1918, with Miss. Jones taking over after she went overseas. 

While all aspects of the Red Cross Hartford chapter's wartime work deserved recognition, it is the Red Cross nurse that takes precedence in national imagination, and the Red Cross' wider place in the history of nursing would later come to reflect the divisions within nursing itself as the occupation transitioned to a more formalized profession.