American Lung Association

The American Lung Association is a United States voluntary health organization dedicated to preventing lung disease and promoting respiratory health through research funding, public education, and policy advocacy, headquartered in Chicago with roughly thirty two thousand members nationwide. It was founded in 1904 as the National Association for the Study and Prevention of Tuberculosis by Edward Livingston Trudeau, Robert Hall Babcock, Henry Martyn Hall, Lawrence Flick, and S. Adolphus Knopf, at a time when tuberculosis was one of the leading causes of death in the country, and it launched its well known Christmas Seals fundraising campaign in 1907 after Red Cross volunteer Emily Bissell created the seals to sell for a penny apiece. The organization changed its name to the National Tuberculosis Association in 1918, then to the National Tuberculosis and Respiratory Disease Association in 1968, and finally to the American Lung Association in 1973 as its mission broadened from tuberculosis specifically to respiratory disease generally. It continues to run public fundraising and awareness events such as the Trek Across Maine, which has raised more than twenty four million dollars since 1985, under the tagline Fighting for Air.