Parade-goers at Ohio State athletic field

Photograph of crowds gathered for Red Cross parade in downtown Columbus, Fall 1918. Here they are seen forming an American flag at the old athletic field on the Ohio State University campus, at the corner of North High Street and Woodruff Avenue. An accompanying caption describes the parade as follows: "During the World War (I) Period, Columbus club women were a unit in their support of all types of effort toward winning the war. The Red Cross was naturally the central agency from which most of the work was conducted and nearly all clubs maintained a Red Cross Unit. One of the most spectacular events of the period was the great parade which took place in downtown Columbus on a Sunday afternoon in the early fall of 1918. Beautiful floats displaying wartime slogans bore prominent officials of the Red Cross organization and the Federation of Women's Clubs. Behind the floats marched the white clad women of the various Red Cross units thruout the city. Each unit had been carefully trained to march and countermarch. Bands furnished wonderful music and the whole effect was both beautiful and inspiring. We don't remember how long we marched nor how far but it seemed many miles for the day was very warm and the white shoes that women of that period wore were not especially designed for comfort. Mrs. E.S. Ingraham was the very efficient leader of our Clinton Welfare League's Red Cross unit for this parade." This image was included in a "Memory Book" compiled by Mrs. H. V. Cottrell, historian for the Clinton League (sometimes called the Clinton Welfare League) from 1938-1943. The book shows the development of the Clintonville neighborhood of Columbus, Ohio, and records the history of the League. The Clinton League was a women's group founded in 1912 to promote child welfare and later general welfare in Columbus, but which was based in and primarily focused on the area of Clintonville