In the 1890s , Trask led what some have called " the first international human rights movement in American history " in response to the Hamidian massacres . In New York what began as a local committee to aid the Armenians grew quickly into the National Armenian Relief Committee . Its board included some of the most powerful men in the United States , including Supreme Court Justice David Josiah Brewer , railroad executive Chauncey Depew , Wall Street banker Jacob Schiff , and church leaders Dr. Leonard Woolsey Bacon and the Reverend Fredrick D. Greene . The Relief Committee recruited Clara Barton to take Red Cross relief teams out of the country for the first time , to the Armenian provinces
Hamidian massacres
Hamidian massacres
Spencer Trask