American Lung Association - History

History

The organization was founded in 1904 to fight tuberculosis as the National Association for the Study and Prevention of Tuberculosis by Edward Livingston Trudeau, Dr. Robert Hall Babcock, Dr. Henry Martyn Hall and Dr. Lawrence Flick.. Earlier in 1892 Flick had founded the Pennsylvania Society for the prevention of TB, the world's first society dedicated to the prevention of TB. NASPT was Renamed the National Tuberculosis Association (NTA) in 1918, and then the National Tuberculosis and Respiratory Disease Association (NTRDA) in 1968, it adopted its current name in 1973. Taglines included, "It's a matter of life and breath," "When you can't breathe, nothing else matters" and currently, "Fighting for Air"

In 1907, the Lung Association began their Christmas Seal campaign to raise money for a small TB sanatorium in Delaware. Emily Bissell, a Red Cross volunteer at the time, created holiday seals to sell at the post office for a penny a piece. By the end of her fundraising campaign, she had raised more than ten times the amount needed to save the sanatorium and the tradition of Christmas Seals was born

The Association is a defender of the Clean Air Act and "Fighting for Healthy Air".