The American Red Cross Sanitation Commission, in Athens, Greece, 1915. (MSS 97 Item 56, Special Collections, University of Delaware Library, Newark, Delaware. , Special Collections, University of Delaware Library, Newark, Delaware.)
In March 1915, the Rockefeller Foundation War Relief Commission released a report that detailed the outbreak of typhus in Serbia. The medical situation was reported to be severe. As a result, the Rockefeller Commission teamed up with the American Red Cross to quickly raise funds, supplies, and volunteers to report to Serbia in order stop the spread of the disease. In March, a team of Americans set sail for Greece. Upon arriving they organized supplies and split into teams. The teams traveled throughout Serbia and Montenegro, where they came into contact and worked closely with groups like Lady Paget’s Serbian Relief Fund hospital. Though the Relief Fund focused primarily on care of the sick, the Red Cross fumigated and cleaned public buildings in which the disease was spreading. The parallel missions of the Red Cross and the Serbian Relief Fund meant that they faced many of the same challenges, and shared a similar goal.
Stanley Hart Osborn was one of the Americans who volunteered for Red Cross service in Serbia. His experiences are captured in a diary, complete with photographs, that is now held in Special Collections at the University of Delaware. Hart’s diary and the reports of the Serbian Relief Fund, written by Lady Paget, are the primary resources used for this exhibit.
Doctors Beyond Borders: Serbian Relief in 1915 
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