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Blog: Romance in the 1880s
Box part
The American Red Cross was founded on May 21, 1881, by Clara Barton. Today, American Red Cross operates as a nonprofit humanitarian organization. Throughout the twentieth century the organization provided services for many notable disasters and emergencies, including the World Wars. Part of a cardboard box that once held rations sent by the American Red Cross to Prisoners of War. Colonel James C. Hughes acquired this ration box while being held as a Prisoner of War (POW) by the Japanese during World War II. Born in Topeka, Kansas, in 1888, Hughes served in the Mexican Border Conflict, World War I, and World War II. In 1942, he was captured by the Japanese on the Bataan peninsula and spent the next 41 months in various Japanese POW camps. He was liberated by Russian forces at Camp Hoten, Manchuria, in 1945. Hughes died in 1964 and is buried in Arlington National Cemetery.
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