Beginning in the 1910s, the American Red Cross offered a high volume of fundraising films that highlighted its work. These films were mostly seen in nontheatrical settings – churches, schools, social clubs – and they offered a straightforward presentation of Red Cross workers helping those in physical and economic distress.
The 1934 short “The Greatest Mother” is one of the few Red Cross films that is easily accessible today, via a YouTube posting that can be seen below. It was produced for the organization by the William J. Ganz Company, that specialized in documentary and industrial films.
“The Greatest Mother” offers a grim view of an America in the midst of the Great Depression, with Red Cross nurses and volunteers often being the only individuals providing aid to the nation’s poorest. The most jolting scenes involve the Red Cross workers providing food and clothing to the rural poor whose lives were upended by a flood – the women of the Red Cross nursing corps were pillars of strength and compassion during an unfathomable time.
Other sequences show Red Cross nurses leading courses for new mothers on how to care for an infant, treating injured veterans in military hospitals, and preparing garments for distribution the needy.
From a contemporary perspective, it is curious that “The Greatest Mother” was produced as a silent film, with a soundtrack clipped together from gramophone recordings of classical music. After all, Hollywood officially bade farewell to the silent movies three years before this film came out. Still, it wasn’t that far away from the silent movie era that audiences would express discomfort with a lack of spoken words. And, truth be told, a narration wasn’t needed – the power of the imagery within this film is better served with an unobtrusive score.