On September 24, 1923, a National Photo Company photograph recorded President Calvin Coolidge and Secretary of Commerce Herbert Hoover with members of the American Red Cross during the organization’s annual meeting. The Library of Congress catalogs the image as showing Coolidge and Hoover with an American Red Cross group, while a related photograph identifies attendees as members of the Red Cross Central Committee and other dignitaries at the annual gathering.
The occasion came only weeks after Coolidge had succeeded to the presidency following Warren G. Harding’s death in August 1923. It placed the new president alongside one of the nation’s most visible voluntary humanitarian institutions—and beside Hoover, whose international prominence had grown from his leadership of food-relief efforts in war-torn Europe.
By the early 1920s, the American Red Cross was adapting its vast World War I-era apparatus to peacetime work. Its efforts increasingly emphasized disaster relief, public-health nursing, first aid, safety education, and community preparedness. The photograph captures federal officials, civic leaders, and voluntary organizations gathered publicly at a moment when private humanitarian institutions held a prominent place in American public life.
Its formal arrangement reflects the close relationship between national political leadership and organized voluntary relief during the interwar period. Hoover’s presence was especially notable: his European food-relief record had made him a leading symbol of large-scale humanitarian administration, and he would later become closely associated with major domestic disaster-relief efforts involving the Red Cross and other agencies.
Image via Wikimedia Commons, public domain. The Wikimedia file dates the photograph to September 24, 1923.
