Clara Barton: Founder of the American Red Cross
Clarissa Harlowe Barton, better known as Clara Barton, was born on Christmas Day, 1821, in Oxford, Mass., and lived until April 12, 1912. In her 90 years of life, she achieved many significant accomplishments. Although she is best known for founding the American Red Cross, she also is recognized for being an outstanding nurse, teacher and humanitarian.
"Everybody's business is nobody's business, and nobody's business is my business."
The youngest of five children, Clara Barton had four brothers and sisters who were more than 10 years her senior. According to the Women in History, "Although a shy child, she accelerated early in her studies: by the time she was four years old, Clara could easily spell complicated words.”
When she was 11 years old, she already showed signs of her "instinctual gift of nursing" by acting as her brother David's nurse after he became seriously injured from a fall. "Day and night she attended him, and the lessons learned were of much use to her later." Clara administered all his medicines, even applying the “great, loathsome crawling leeches,” and never left his side.
"I may sometimes be willing to teach for nothing, but if paid at all, I shall never do a man's work for less than a man's pay."
Clara was home-schooled until she turned 15—it was at that early age that she began teaching school, even though she taught "at a time when most teachers were men." Her humanitarian nature was seen at an early age when she worked to establish a free public school in Bordentown, N.J.
Wanting to educate all children, even those who could not afford to contribute toward her teaching salary, Barton "offered to teach in a school for free if the town provided a building. The first day, six students showed up, the next day 20, and within a year there were several hundred students at New Jersey's first free public school,” according to AmericanCivilWar.com.
Barton's free school grew to 600 students, but when it came time to hire someone to head the school, a man was hired instead of Barton. Disappointed and frustrated, Barton moved to Washington, D.C., to work as clerk in the U.S. Patent Office. According to Women in History, "This was the first time a woman had received a substantial clerkship in the federal government."
"I may be compelled to face danger, but never fear it, and while our soldiers can stand and fight, I can stand and feed and nurse them."
With the outbreak of the Civil War, Barton realized the Army Medical Department was sorely lacking in supplies. For nearly a year, she struggled to bring her own medical supplies to the battlegrounds. Eventually, she was permitted to transport the supplies she had collected to the battlefield. During the war years, she also cooked, cleaned, nursed and comforted the injured soldiers.
"The door that nobody else will go in at seems always to swing open widely for me."
After the war years, Clara didn't rest. Instead she lobbied President James Garfield to help her to create a new and more encompassing American Red Cross—an organization that could be helpful not just at war time, but in other crises too. Barton became the first president of the American Red Cross on May 21, 1881, and continued in this position until 1904.
Barton continued to do good works up to her death and is considered one of America's true heroes—a woman of substance, strength and determination.
At the time of her death, the Detroit Free Press eloquently wrote, "She was perhaps the most perfect incarnation of mercy the modern world has known."
Subhead quotations are attributed to Clara Barton.
