Most famous and widely circulated photograph of Clara Barton. Circa 1866.
Achievements
Membership
American Red Cross
1881 - 1904
In 1881 Clara Barton organized the American Association of the Red Cross, known from 1893 as the American National Red Cross, and served as its president until 1904.
In 1881 Clara Barton organized the American Association of the Red Cross, known from 1893 as the American National Red Cross, and served as its president until 1904.
The Red Cross - A History of this Remarkable International Movement in the Interest of Humanity
(This is the story of how the International Red Cross came...)
This is the story of how the International Red Cross came into existence. The first chapters give the details of the early difficulties of working with governments – both International, National, and local. Later chapters deal with the stories of the disasters and the people who suffered, and how the Red Cross helped them. At its heart, the Red Cross, driven by Clara Barton, looks to a future world where a Red Cross is no longer necessary. By the time you finish this book, you will be touched by the spirit and practical love of Clara Barton, and you will never take the Red Cross, and its thousands of volunteers, for granted again.
(The Red Cross has done its part in that contest in the sa...)
The Red Cross has done its part in that contest in the same spirit in which it has heretofore done all the work which has been committed to its care. It has done it unobtrusively, faithfully and successfully. It may not altogether have escaped censure in the rather wild cyclone of criticism that has swept over the country, but we remember not so much the faultfinding that may have occasionally been poured out upon the Red Cross, as the blessings and benedictions from all sides for work well and nobly done that have fallen even upon its humblest ministers and assistants.
(In 1907 Clara Barton, in response to a request from a you...)
In 1907 Clara Barton, in response to a request from a young admirer, published "The Story of My Childhood," a short 45-page book which includes details of her childhood shyness, her care of her brother David during his illness, her home life, and her initiation into the teaching profession. Clara Barton's short but very entertaining narrative of her early life is a valuable source detailing her actions and achievements and is indispensable for an understanding of the development of a character that would lead her to become a true American hero.
Clara Barton was an American nurse, humanitarian, activist, and educator. She is the founder of the American Red Cross.
Background
Clara Barton was born Clarissa Harlowe Barton on February 25, 1821, in North Oxford, Massachusetts, United States. She was the youngest child of Stephen Barton, a farmer and state legislator who had served in the Revolution under General Anthony Wayne; she later recalled that his tales made war early familiar to her. Her mother was Sarah Stone. The youngest child, with four much older siblings, Barton did not have an easy childhood. Her mother was not kind to her. Her siblings were more parents than playmates. However, Barton's childhood wasn't all bad. She attended school, where she excelled despite her shy demeanor. At home, Barton loved to hear her father's war stories. When she was eleven, Barton's older brother David fell off a barn roof and was bedridden for the following two years. Young Barton helped nurse him back to health. These experiences would prove beneficial, and at times crucial, to her humanitarian work later in life.
Education
Since the age of three, Clara Barton had exceptional reading and spelling skills and attended the Colonel Stones High School, but was a very shy kid. In 1850-1851, she attended the Clinton Liberal Institute in New York, where she studied writing and languages.
At the age of eighteen, Clara Barton went to work: not as a nurse, but as a teacher. In the 1800s in the United States, nursing was a predominately male profession. Teaching was one of the few careers available to women. But that wasn’t the only reason Barton taught; she both excelled at teaching and enjoyed it. She began teaching near her home in Oxford, Massachusetts, then went on to start a school for the children of her brother’s mill workers, and finally established the first free public school in the town of Bordentown, New Jersey. Barton’s Bordentown school was a huge success, so successful that the powers-that-be in the town felt it was necessary to hire a male principal to run the school. Barton, who had established the school and built it up, was outraged. Rather than subordinate herself to a male principal, Barton resigned. She was then employed as a copyist by the United States Patent Office in Washington, D.C., from 1854 to 1857 and again in 1860 becoming the first woman in America to hold such a government post. She continued this work till April 1861, when the Civil War began and she determined to serve the Federal troops. Although the United States Sanitary Commission was formed in June 1861 to aid soldiers, Barton had little association with it. Her own enterprise involved appeals for provisions to be carried into the war zones; she collected and stored them in Washington for personal distribution.
In 1862 the United States surgeon general permitted her to travel to the front, and she implemented this order with directives from generals John Pope and James S. Wadsworth, who welcomed her work. Barton was present with Federal forces during the siege of Charleston, South Carolina, and also at engagements in the Wilderness and at Fredericksburg, Virginia, and elsewhere.
Barton's mission was not primarily that of a nurse. She became increasingly adept at obtaining and passing out provisions, though her courage and humanity made her a vital presence everywhere.
In 1864 she made her most influential connection, joining General Benjamin F. Butler with the Army of the James. She later visited the notorious prison camp at Andersonville, Georgia, to identify and mark Union graves. In 1865 she conceived the project of locating missing soldiers and obtained a note of endorsement from President Lincoln. She set up the Bureau of Records in Washington and traced perhaps 20, 000 names. She also lectured on her experiences until her voice failed in 1868. Barton's health continued to trouble her; in 1869 she went to Geneva, Switzerland, for rest and a change. There, officials of the International Red Cross, organized in 1864, urged her to seek United States agreement to the Geneva Convention recognizing the work of the Red Cross; the powerful United States Sanitary Commission had been unable to obtain it. But before Barton could turn to the task, the Franco-Prussian War began. She offered her services to the Grand Duchess of Baden in administering military hospitals.
Later, with the French defeated and Paris held by the Commune, she entered the starving city to distribute food and clothing. She served elsewhere in France - in Lyons again instituting her work system. Clara Barton settled in Danville, New York, where for several years she was a semi-invalid.
In 1877 she wrote a founder of the International Red Cross, offering to lead an American branch of the organization. Thus, at 56 she began a new career.
In 1881 Barton incorporated the American Red Cross, with herself as president. A year later her extraordinary efforts brought about United States ratification of the Geneva Convention. She herself attended conferences of the International Red Cross as the American representative. She was, however, far from bureaucratic in interests. Although wholly individualistic and unlike reformers who worked on programs for social change, she did great social service as an activist and propagandist.
In 1883 Barton served as superintendent of the Women's Reformatory Prison, Sherborn, Massachusetts, thus deviating from a career marked by a single-minded commitment to her major cause.
As a Red Cross worker, she went to Michigan, which had been ravaged by fires in 1882, and to Charleston, South Carolina, which had suffered an earthquake. In 1884 she traveled the Ohio River, supplying flood victims. Five years later she went to Johnstown, Pennsylvania, to help it recover from a disastrous flood.
In 1891 Barton traveled to Russia, which was enduring famine, and in 1896 to Turkey, following the Armenian massacres. Barton was in her late 70 when the Cuban insurrection required relief measures. She prepared to sail in aid of Cubans, but the outbreak of the Spanish-American War turned her ship into a welfare station for Americans as well. As late as 1900 she visited Galveston, Texas, personally to supervise relief for victims of a tidal wave.
In 1900 Congress reincorporated the Red Cross, demanding an accounting of funds. By 1904 public pressures and dissension within the Red Cross itself had become too much for Barton, and on June 16 she resigned from the organization. She even entertained unrealistic thoughts of beginning another one. A figure of international renown, she retired instead to Glen Echo, Maryland, where she died on April 12, 1912.
Barton wrote several books, including History of the Red Cross (1882), The Red Cross in Peace and War (1899), and The Story of My Childhood (1907).
Clara Barton founded the American Red Cross, which is a universally recognized humanitarian organization of great repute. It makes available emergency assistance to victims in the United States and is the 3rd most popular charity/non-profit organization in America. In the year 1975, her home in Glen Echo was made into a historic site and was named the Clara Barton National Historic Site, the first National Historic Site dedicated to a woman. Despite the arbitrariness of her administrative methods, her achievements remained; she was affectionately known as the "angel of the battlefield" for her life’s work.
Although not formally a member of the Universalist Church of America, in a 1905 letter to the widow of Carl Norman Thrasher, Barton identified herself with her parents' church as a "Universalist." While she was not an active member of her parents' church, Barton wrote about how well known her family was in her hometown and how many relationships her father formed with others in their town through their church and religion.
Politics
Barton started her humanitarian work during the American Civil War on the side of the North.
Views
While Clara Barton was in Europe for a rest (1869-1870), the Franco-German War broke out, and Barton again distributed relief supplies to war victims. In Europe, she became associated with the International Red Cross (now Red Cross and Red Crescent), and after her return to the United States in 1873 she campaigned vigorously and successfully for that country to sign the Geneva Convention. The agreement sought to allow for the treating of the sick and wounded in battle, the proper identifying and burial of those killed in battle, and the proper handling of prisoners of war. She wrote the American amendment to the constitution of the Red Cross, which provides for the distribution of relief not only in war but also in times of such calamities as famines, floods, earthquakes, tornadoes, and pestilence.
Barton was a strong supporter of equal rights for all people. She corresponded with many leaders of the women's rights movement, including Susan B. Anthony, and was friendly with many nineteenth-century African-American leaders, including educator Elizabeth Hyde Botume and Frederick Douglas.
Membership
In 1881 Clara Barton organized the American Association of the Red Cross, known from 1893 as the American National Red Cross, and served as its president until 1904.
American Red Cross
,
United States
1881 - 1904
Personality
As a child, Clara Barton was a rather shy girl. As a grown-up, she tended to demonstrate some authoritarian style in managing the American Red cross by the evidence from her fellows. Barton loved all animals, especially cats. During the Civil War, Senator Schuyler Colfax sent her a kitten, with a bow around its neck, in appreciation for her work during the Battle of Antietam. David Barton taught his youngest sister to ride a horse, a skill she loved and enjoyed throughout her long life. Although Barton lived a simple life, she was not afraid of new technology. Her home in Glen Echo, Maryland, had a telephone and electric lights. She was fond of taking rides in automobiles and once even rode in a submarine.
Interests
riding
Artists
Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Hyde Botume, Frederick Douglas
Connections
Clara Barton had a relationship with colonel John J. Elwell and received three proposals throughout her lifetime, but never married.
