Henry Dunant - Return To Public Memory

Return To Public Memory

In September 1895, Georg Baumberger, the chief editor of the St. Gall newspaper Die Ostschweiz, wrote an article about the Red Cross founder, whom he had met and conversed with during a walk in Heiden a month earlier. The article entitled "Henri Dunant, the founder of the Red Cross", appeared in the German Illustrated Magazine Über Land und Meer, and the article was soon reprinted in other publications throughout Europe. The article struck a chord, and he received renewed attention and support. He received the Swiss Binet-Fendt Prize and a note from Pope Leo XIII. Because of support from Russian tsarist widow Maria Feodorovna and other donations, his financial situation improved remarkably.

In 1897, Rudolf Müller, who was now working as a teacher in Stuttgart, wrote a book about the origins of the Red Cross, altering the official history to stress Dunant's role. The book also contained the text of A Memory of Solferino. Dunant began an exchange of correspondence with Bertha von Suttner and wrote numerous articles and writings. He was especially active in writing about women's rights, and in 1897 facilitated the founding of a "Green Cross" women's organization whose only section was briefly active in Brussels.

Read more about this topic:  Henry Dunant

Famous quotes containing the words return to, return, public and/or memory:

    The chickadee and nuthatch are more inspiring society than statesmen and philosophers, and we shall return to these last as to more vulgar companions.
    Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)

    If a man, notoriously and designedly, insults and affronts you, knock him down; but if he only injures you, your best revenge is to be extremely civil to him in your outward behaviour, though at the same time you counterwork him, and return him the compliment, perhaps with interest.
    Philip Dormer Stanhope, 4th Earl Chesterfield (1694–1773)

    “Well, well,” he said to himself, “you are not in Belgium; let us begin our apprenticeship in earnest, and so long as we are in the woods, howl heartily with the wolves.”
    —For the State of Nebraska, U.S. public relief program (1935-1943)

    With the holders holding my hand nearing the call of the bird,
    Comrades mine and I in the midst, and their memory ever to keep, for the dead I loved so well,
    For the sweetest, wisest soul of all my days and
    lands—and this for his dear sake,
    Lilac and star and bird twined with the chant of my soul,
    There in the fragrant pines and the cedars dusk and dim.
    Walt Whitman (1819–1892)