During winter term 2025 Dr. Kara Ritzheimer’s History 310 (Historian’s Craft) students researched and wrote blog posts about OSU during WWII. The sources they consulted are listed at the end of each post. Students wrote on a variety of topics and we hope you appreciate their contributions as much as the staff at SCARC does!
Blog post written by Emma Romeo
Oregon State College (OSC) played an active role in supporting the American Red Cross (ARC) during World War II, contributing significantly to the nation’s wartime relief efforts as the campus became a hub for Red Cross activities. Under the umbrella of the ARC, students organized fundraising events, participated in offered training programs, and volunteered for various service projects to aid the national effort and support American soldiers fighting overseas. Archival documents and wartime articles in the campus’s student newspaper, the Oregon State Barometer, reveal how much OSC students supported the American Red Cross’s wartime efforts, and how the student efforts helped to shape the home front during World War II.
Founded in 1881 by Clara Barton, the United States Government historically has tasked the American Red Cross with aiding in relief for victims of disaster or accidents, improving public health, developing nurses and other healthcare volunteers, and instructing the public in hygiene and first aid issues.[i] Congress recognized the Red Cross in a 1900 charter that granted the independent, non-profit institution certain responsibilities in exchange for tax-exemptions, including the obligation to uphold the provisions of the Geneva conventions of 1864 and 1929 and to provide disaster relief domestically and abroad.[ii] Furthermore, due to the connection between the organization and the federal government, beginning with Woodrow Wilson in 1913, the sitting President of the United States has served as the honorary Chairman of the Red Cross and is allowed de facto leadership of the organization’s functions.[iii]
During WWII, the Red Cross and its numerous volunteers worked to provide aid to those affected with wartime suffering by providing hospital staff and trained nurses, producing emergency supplies such as bandages and surgical dressings, collecting donations of money, scrap metal, and clothing, and operating training programs for nutrition, medical care, and water safety. The Red Cross expanded its wartime services by creating the Blood Donor Service Program in 1940, which collected blood from millions of donors for medical personnel to treat traumatic injuries on the war front.[iv] During WWII, the Red Cross was the United States’ sole organizer in charge of collecting, testing, storing, and transporting whole blood, plasma, and serum to help soldiers overseas, often sent as dried plasma that could be rehydrated with water to be given to soldiers and did not require refrigeration.[v] At the end of the war, the total amount of blood from 6.7 million volunteers was tallied at over 13 million pints.[vi]
Along with aid through medical services, the ARC collected donations and raised funds on the home front starting in 1939 and continuing through the war. Similarly to what was done during WWI, the ARC created War Funds and drives to gather donations sent to overseas military services as well as domestic communities, such as providing financial aid and volunteer services to families who had lost their main breadwinners to the war.[vii] Volunteers and donations for the Red Cross soared during WWII, with the height of membership being in 1945 when the organization boasted 7.5 million volunteers and 39,000 paid staff, and the total donations collected by September 1945 amounting to more than $784 million. Nearly every family in the United States had a connection to the ARC services in some capacity, either by donating to the organization or being a recipient of its aid.[viii]
Due to the rise of war-based activism and charity across the country, the ARC began to extend its chapters to university campuses starting in 1942. Before the establishment of an official chapter on a college campus, often high numbers of student volunteers were already hosting Red Cross-related activities to donate to the organization without being officially recognized as a member of the ARC. The national organization eventually included 187 universities in war-related or regular chapter activities through which students contributed to war fund campaigns, participated in volunteer services such as blood donation, and enrolled in training courses for first aid, nutrition, and water safety.[ix]
On the Oregon State College (OSC) campus specifically, newspaper articles and yearbooks document student support for the American Red Cross during the war. Even before the establishment of OSC’s ARC chapter in October 1945, the War Council of Oregon State, a women-run group in charge of on-campus charity projects for the war effort, organized donations to the Red Cross, along with orchestrated service projects, raising funds for war bonds, and other charitable contributions.[x] In collaboration with student government and the Associated Women’s Legislative Council (AWLC), the War Council encouraged students and faculty on-campus to donate funds to the war effort through Red Cross Week at OSC.[xi] Red Cross Week started on Friday, February 20th, 1942, with the Associated Student Body of Oregon State College’s (ASOSC) Red Cross Committee overseeing the event. Over the course of this week, the OSC campus hosted festivities, including military speakers such as Col. William R. Scott, professor of military science and tactics, performers such as the OSC Glee Club and the college orchestra, as well as vesper services to raise money and awareness for the activities of the Red Cross both overseas and domestically.[xii] Multiple articles and advertisements in the Oregon State Barometer strongly urged studentsto do their part by donating at least a dollar, and the newspaper highlighted student organizations who raised or donated the most money with written recognition on the cover page of the issue.[xiii] The week concluded with the Nickel Hops, which was a donation-based dance held in the Memorial Union of OSC and generated the largest collected donation made by any organization.[xiv] The final tally of money collected by OSC was $1300, adjusted for inflation to be roughly $25,000 raised by student organizations on campus.[xv]
Because the Special Collections & Archives Research Center, OSU’s official archive, does not have extensive documentation about the Red Cross during the war, the Oregon State Barometer, the daily newspaper, is the best source of information about the ARC during WWII. This student-published newspaper, written and edited by students to document important events and issues on campus and off, provides first-hand insight into the issues of the day, especially regarding WW2. Multiple articles document the role of the Red Cross on campus, which suggests the importance that newspaper editors placed on students’ participation in the organization’s war-related services, as it was viewed as paramount to supporting the Americans overseas. This is especially relevant in the numerous advertisements that newspaper published to encourage donations of funds, blood, especially apparent throughout Red Cross Week editions.
The Barometer writers frequently published persuasive arguments to attempt to draw student volunteers to the organization, an example being the October 3, 1944 edition of the paper, where numerous first page articles describe the functions of the Red Cross during the week, including surgical bandage rolling, weekly meetings, and availability of blood donation for interested students.[xvi] These newspaper articles illustrate the deeply intertwined nature of the functions of Oregon State College and the war effort, and how home front charity and volunteering opportunities were viewed by the public as an important mission to help the war effort. Furthermore, it showed the attempt at balancing traditional college life with the stress of an active war.
Numerous volunteer opportunities existed on Oregon State College’s (OSC) campus during World War II, with one of the largest contributors to the home front war effort being the Red Cross. Although the Red Cross did not establish an official chapter at OSC until after the war, the university and organization did work closely together during the war to offer several key training programs on campus, as seen in OSC’s offering instructional programs for students, including water safety courses and surgical dressing folding.[xvii] The Red Cross also worked with OSC to expand the first aid courses students could take through the university to acquire Red Cross certification and learn first aid on real patients within a controlled environment. Beginning in the 1940-41 school year, students from any major or school at OSC could take PE 358 or PE 359 through the university to earn training in emergency medicine, which could be used for future work and volunteer opportunities through the Red Cross after graduation from OSC.[xviii]
The presence of the Red Cross on OSC’s campus did not go unnoticed by the National Red Cross Organization, and due to ample student service to the charity throughout the war effort, the Red Cross granted Oregon State an official charter on October 4, 1945, thereby making OSC a recognized member of the National Red Cross community.[xix] Continuing service to the organization, the newly created chapter continued to host services including blood donations, with thirty students a month donating blood to help soldiers in 1945.[xx] Members also organized participation in more artistic ventures, including collecting donations of knitted afghan squares to make blankets for hospital wards, creating scrapbook collections, and giving overseas servicemen donations to remind them of home and maintain morale.[xxi]
The American Red Cross played an integral role in the World War II home front effort by providing essential medical training and aid, administering disaster relief services, and organizing and promoting widespread volunteer and donation campaigns in communities throughout the United States. Oregon State College’s connection to the war effort demonstrates how universities were a key contributor to this effort, with students actively participating in Red Cross activities, raising funds, donating blood, and participating in training programs. Furthermore, the creation of official Red Cross chapters on college campuses during the war marked a formalization of student contributions to the larger national cause. The legacy of these efforts can be seen in the continued influence of the American Red Cross and its lasting relationship with academic institutions like Oregon State, which, to this day, hosts one of the largest blood drives in the Pacific Northwest, proving how local contributions have a documented impact on home front efforts during periods of national emergency.[xxii]
[i] Foster Rhea Dulles, The American Red Cross: A History (Harper and Brothers, 1950): 15-16; Laszlo Ledermann, “The International Organization of the Red Cross and the League of Red Cross Societies,” The American Journal of International Law 42, no. 3 (1948): 637, http://www.jstor.org/stable/2193966.
[ii] United States Fifty-Eighth Congress, “An Act to Incorporate the American Red Cross,” Office of the Law Revision Council, https://uscode.house.gov/statviewer.htm?volume=33&page=599.
[iii] “World War II and the American Red Cross,” American Red Cross, 2025, https://www.redcross.org/content/dam/redcross/National/history-wwii.pdf.
[iv] Thomas A. Guglielmo, “‘Red Cross, Double Cross’: Race and America’s World War II-Era Blood Donor Service,” The Journal of American History 97, no. 1 (2010): 63, http://www.jstor.org/stable/40662818.
[v] Rebecca L. Trecek, “War Relief in World War II: Women and the American Red Cross,” Graduate Review 3, no. 1 (2022): 25. https://openspaces.unk.edu/grad-review/vol3/iss1/2.
[vi] Guglielmo, “‘Red Cross, Double Cross’: Race and America’s World War II-Era Blood Donor Service,” 63.
[vii] Trecek, “War Relief in World War II: Women and the American Red Cross,” 27.
[viii] “World War II and the American Red Cross,” American Red Cross, https://www.redcross.org/content/dam/redcross/National/history-wwii.pdf.
[ix] “World War II and the American Red Cross.”
[x] William Robbins, The People’s School: A History of Oregon State University (Oregon State University Press, 2017), 280, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/osu/detail.action?docID=5106032,; “War Council,” The Beaver 1945, Oregon State University Yearbooks Collection, Oregon Digital, https://oregondigital.org/concern/documents/12579s71x, 202.
[xi] Robbins, The People’s School: A History of Oregon State University, 279; “Red Cross Unit Here? That is the Question.” Oregon State Barometer, April 21, 1944, Oregon Digital, https://oregondigital.org/concern/documents/8k71nk49j?locale=en, 3.
[xii] “Vesper Service Will Be Given in Men’s Gym,” Oregon State Barometer, February 21, 1942, Oregon Digital, https://oregondigital.org/concern/documents/8k71p705k; “Curtain Rises on AWS Carnival Tonight,” Oregon State Barometer, February 20, 1942, Oregon Digital, https://oregondigital.org/concern/documents/8k71p7049.
[xiii] “Curtain Rises on AWS Carnival Tonight,” Oregon State Barometer, February 20, 1942, Oregon Digital, https://oregondigital.org/concern/documents/8k71p7049, 1.
[xiv] The Beaver 1942, Oregon State University Yearbooks Collection, Oregon Digital, https://oregondigital.org/concern/documents/f7623d013, 110-113.
[xv] “Red Cross Passes Goal,” Oregon State Barometer, February 28, 1942, Oregon Digital, https://oregondigital.org/concern/documents/8k71p710f, 1.
[xvi] ‘Bandage Work Starts Today,” Oregon State Barometer, October 3, 1944,Oregon Digital, https://oregondigital.org/concern/documents/8k71nk65x.
[xvii] Annual meeting of Benton County chapter American Red Cross, 08 October 1945, 1987-061.0006, Myrl Haygood Collection, Benton County Historical Society Collection, Philomath, Oregon, https://bentoncountymuseum.catalogaccess.com/archives/125130, 8; “Red Cross Charter,” The Beaver 1945, Oregon Digital, https://oregondigital.org/concern/documents/12579s71x, 205.
[xviii] “General Catalog, 1945-1946,” 1945, Oregon Digital, https://oregondigital.org/concern/documents/fx719v87r, 373.
[xix] “Red Cross Mgr. Says College Unit Valuable,” Oregon State Barometer, October 6, 1944, Oregon Digital, https://oregondigital.org/concern/documents/8k71nk666.
[xx] “Red Cross Council,” The Beaver 1945, Oregon Digital, https://oregondigital.org/concern/documents/12579s71x, 206-7.
[xxi] “It’s Your Tomorrow at Oregon State,” 1945, Oregon Digital, https://oregondigital.org/concern/documents/fx71cs277, 13.
[xxii] Oregon State University, “Blood Drive Association,” Clubs & Organizations, https://clubs.oregonstate.edu/bda.
