American Red Cross National Headquarters Building

American Red Cross National Headquarters is a building in Washington, D.C. and was built between 1915 and 1917. The building serves both as a memorial to women who served in the American Civil War and as the headquarters building for the American Red Cross.

The Board of Governors room contains three Favrile windows by designer Louis Comfort Tiffany. The windows are notable for being the largest suite of Tiffany windows outside a religious building. Unlike many other Tiffany windows, these windows have remained in their original setting. The costs of these windows were donated by two organizations of Civil War women: the Woman's Relief Corps of the North and the United Daughters of the Confederacy. The left panel was based on Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's poem, Santa Filomena, that honored the work of Florence Nightingale. The center panel depicts the conception of the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement at the Battle of Solferino near Solferino, Italy. The right panel depicts a scene from Edmund Spenser's epic poem The Faerie Queene.

Photo 87, Nov 2011