American Lung Association Company
American Lung Association
The American Lung Association is a voluntary health organization whose mission is to save lives by improving lung health and preventing lung disease.
The organization was founded in 1904 to fight tuberculosis as the National Association for the Study and Prevention of Tuberculosis by Edward Livingston Trudeau, Dr. Robert Hall Babcock, Dr. Henry Martyn Hall, Dr. Lawrence Flick, and Dr. S. Adolphus Knopf. Earlier in 1892 Flick had founded the Pennsylvania Society for the prevention of TB, the world's first society dedicated to the prevention of TB. NASPT was Renamed the National Tuberculosis Association (NTA) in 1918, and then the National Tuberculosis and Respiratory Disease Association (NTRDA) in 1968, it adopted its current name in 1973.
In 1907, the Lung Association began their Christmas Seal campaign to raise money for a small TB sanatorium in Delaware. Emily Bissell, a Red Cross volunteer at the time, created holiday seals to sell at the post office for a penny a piece. By the end of her fundraising campaign, she had raised more than ten times the amount needed to save the sanatorium and the tradition of Christmas Seals was born.
