The American Red Cross was a comparatively small organization at the outset of World War I, even still when the United States joined the war in 1917. The American Red Cross successfully encouraged membership and support to meet the challenges it faced during the war, as well as the Spanish Flu Pandemic.

Between 1917 and 1919, the organization increased tremendously. According to the American Red Cross, "by the war’s end, nearly one-third of the U.S. population was either a donor to the Red Cross or serving as a volunteer."