American Red Cross
Johnstown, Cambria County, Pennsylvania
Marker Inscription
On June 5, 1889, Clara Barton and a group of American Red Cross volunteers arrived in Johnstown to help the survivors of a devastating flood resulting from the failure of the South Fork Dam. It was one of the first major disaster responses for the humanitarian organization. The agency established feeding stations, built shelters for survivors, and rendered medical care. Over five months, the Red Cross provided relief to 25,000 people.
Erected by Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission
The Story
On May 31, 1889, the South Fork Dam failed and sent a wall of water into Johnstown, killing thousands in one of the worst disasters of the era. Days later, Clara Barton arrived with volunteers of the American Red Cross, the humanitarian society she had founded, to meet the survivors' needs. Over five months the Red Cross opened feeding stations, built shelters, and gave medical care to some 25,000 people.
Why it matters
Johnstown was one of the young American Red Cross's first great tests, helping establish the model of organized civilian disaster relief that Americans still rely on today.
Own a business near here? Add it to the map.
Related people
- · Clara Barton
Related events
- · Johnstown Flood of 1889
- · South Fork Dam failure
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
St. Xavier's
Unity Township, PA · est. 1946
When the Sisters of Mercy sailed from Ireland in 1843, they established at this convent and academy their oldest foundation in America. From this quiet Westmoreland County house, the order sent women outward as nurses and teachers, seeding schools and hospitals across a growing nation. It is a monument to immigrant faith and to the outsized role Catholic sisterhoods played in early American education and care of the sick.
Sisters of Charity of Seton Hill
Greensburg, PA · est. 2021
In 1870 Mother Aloysia Lowe and a small band of companions came from Cincinnati to found the Sisters of Charity of Seton Hill, making Greensburg their permanent home in 1882. Rooted in the tradition of Elizabeth Ann Seton, the sisters built a far-reaching ministry of teaching and healing, serving scores of schools and hospitals across a dozen states. In 1918 they founded Seton Hill College — now a university — and by 1960 had carried their mission overseas to Korea.
Flora Black (1870-1951)
Summit Township, PA · est. 1989
On this Somerset County farm in October 1914, Flora Black founded the Society of Farm Women of Pennsylvania, giving rural women a formal organization of their own in an era when farm households ran on their unpaid, largely unrecognized labor. The society spread county by county across the Commonwealth, working to improve conditions in farm homes and to raise the standing of the women who kept them. Black herself remained a civic leader in county and state affairs for decades.
Nellie Bly (1864-1922)
Apollo, PA
This marker honors Nellie Bly, one of America's boldest early investigative reporters, who spent part of her childhood in this corner of western Pennsylvania. Writing for papers in Pittsburgh and New York in the Gilded Age, she went undercover to expose the mistreatment of the poor and the institutionalized, turning firsthand experience into front-page reform journalism. In 1889–90 she captured the nation's imagination by racing around the world in a record 72 days, a feat inspired by Jules Verne's famous novel.