Clara Barton

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Clara Barton
North Oxford, Massachusetts, U.S.
DiedApril 12, 1912(1912-04-12) (aged 90)
Glen Echo, Maryland, U.S.
Resting placeNorth Cemetery in Oxford, Massachusetts, U.S.
Occupation(s)Nurse, humanitarian, founder and first president of the American Red Cross
RelativesElvira Stone (cousin)
Signature

Clarissa Harlowe Barton (December 25, 1821 – April 12, 1912) was an American nurse who founded the

patent clerk. Since nursing education was not then very formalized and she did not attend nursing school, she provided self-taught nursing care.[1] Barton is noteworthy for doing humanitarian work and civil rights advocacy at a time before women had the right to vote.[2] She was inducted into the National Women's Hall of Fame in 1973.[3]

Early life

Clarissa Harlowe Barton was born on December 25, 1821, in

selectman who influenced his daughter's patriotism and humanitarianism.[2] He was a soldier under the command of General Anthony Wayne in his violent removal of Indigenous peoples in the northwest. He was also the leader of progressive thought in the Oxford village area.[5]
Barton's mother was Sarah Stone Barton.

In 1825, when she was three years old, Barton was sent to school with her brother Stephen, where she reportedly excelled in reading and spelling. At school, she became close friends with Nancy Fitts. Barton was very timid as a child, and Fitts was her only known childhood friend.[6]

Beginning in 1832, when Barton was ten years old, she acted as a nurse to her brother David for two years after he fell from the roof of a barn and sustained a severe head injury. In nursing her brother, she learned how to deliver prescription medications and perform the practice of bloodletting, in which blood was removed from the patient by leeches attached to the skin. David eventually made a full recovery.[6]

Barton's parents tried to encourage her to be more outgoing by enrolling her in Colonel Stones High School, but Barton became more timid and depressed and would not eat. She was brought back home to regain her health.[7]

Upon her return, Barton's family relocated to help the widow of Barton's cousin, who had been left to manage four children and a farm after her husband's death. Barton helped to perform maintenance and repair work on the home in which her family was to live.[6] After the work was done, she was reportedly concerned with becoming a burden to her family.[7] Therefore, she began to play with her male cousins, participating in their activities, such as horseback riding. When Barton injured herself, her mother decided that she should focus on developing more traditionally feminine skills and invited a female cousin to help develop Barton's femininity.[8]

To assist Barton in overcoming her shyness, her parents persuaded her to become a schoolteacher.[9] She studied at the Clinton Liberal Institute in Clinton, New York. She achieved her first teacher's certificate in 1839, at 17 years old. Barton led an effective redistricting campaign that allowed the children of workers to receive an education.

Early professional life

Barton became an educator in 1838 and served for 11 years in schools in and around Oxford, Massachusetts. Barton fared well as a teacher; she knew how to handle children, particularly the boys since as a child she enjoyed her boy cousins' and brothers' company. She learned how to act like them, making it easier for her to relate to and control the boys in her care.[7] After her mother's death in 1851, the family home closed down. Barton decided to further her education by pursuing writing and languages at the Clinton Liberal Institute in New York. In this college, she developed many friendships that broadened her point of view on many issues concurring at the time. The principal of the institute recognized her tremendous abilities and admired her work. This friendship lasted for many years, eventually turning into a romance.[5] As a writer, her terminology was pristine and easy to understand. Her writings and bodies of work could instruct the local statesmen.[5]

While teaching in Hightstown, Barton learned about the lack of public schools in Bordentown, the neighboring city.[5] In 1852, she was contracted to open a free school in Bordentown, which was the first ever free school in New Jersey.[10] She was successful, and after a year she had hired another woman to help teach over 600 people. Both women were making $250 a year. This accomplishment compelled the town to raise nearly $4,000 for a new school building. Once it was completed, Barton was replaced as principal by a man elected by the school board. They saw the position as head of a large institution to be unfitting for a woman. She was demoted to "female assistant" and worked in a harsh environment until she had a nervous breakdown along with other health ailments, and quit.[11]

In 1855, she moved to Washington, D.C., and began work as a clerk in the U.S. Patent Office;[12] this was the first time a woman had received a substantial clerkship in the federal government and at a salary equal to a man's salary. For three years, she received much abuse and slander from male clerks.[13] Subsequently, under political opposition to women working in government offices, her position was reduced to that of copyist, and in 1858, under the administration of James Buchanan, she was fired because of her "Black Republicanism".[13] After the election of Abraham Lincoln, having lived with relatives and friends in Massachusetts for three years, she returned to the patent office in the autumn of 1860, now as temporary copyist, in the hope she could make way for more women in government service.

American Civil War

Barton c. 1866

On April 19, 1861, the

6th Massachusetts Militia, were transported after the violence to the unfinished Capitol Building in Washington, D.C., where Barton lived at the time. Wanting to serve her country, Barton went to the railroad station when the victims arrived and nursed 40 men.[13]
Barton provided crucial, personal assistance to the men in uniform, many of whom were wounded, hungry and without supplies other than what they carried on their backs. She personally took supplies to the building to help the soldiers.

Barton quickly recognized them, as she had grown up with some of them and even taught some. Barton, along with several other women, personally provided clothing, food, and supplies for the sick and wounded soldiers. She learned how to store and distribute medical supplies and offered emotional support to the soldiers by keeping their spirits high. She would read books to them, write letters to their families for them, talk to them, and support them.[14]

It was on that day that she identified herself with army work and began her efforts towards collecting medical supplies for the Union soldiers. Prior to distributing provisions directly onto the battlefield and gaining further support, Barton used her own living quarters as a storeroom and distributed supplies with the help of a few friends in early 1862, despite opposition in the War Department and among field surgeons.

Ladies' Aid Society helped in sending bandages, food, and clothing that would later be distributed during the Civil War. In August 1862, Barton finally gained permission from Quartermaster Daniel Rucker to work on the front lines. She gained support from other people who believed in her cause. These people became her patrons, her most supportive being Senator Henry Wilson of Massachusetts.[15]

After the First Battle of Bull Run, Barton placed an ad in a Massachusetts newspaper for supplies; the response was a profound influx of supplies.[16] She worked to distribute stores, clean field hospitals, apply dressings, and serve food to wounded soldiers in close proximity to several battles, including Cedar Mountain, Second Bull Run, Antietam, and Fredericksburg.[17] Barton helped both Union and Confederate soldiers.[16] Supplies were not always readily available though. At the battle of Antietam, for example, Barton used corn-husks in place of bandages.[18] Speaking of her commitment to being a nurse in the war after experiencing battle, Clara would say, “I shall remain here while anyone remains, and do whatever comes to my hand. 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.”[19]

In April 1863, Barton accompanied her brother, David, to

Morris Island to nurse Union soldiers there, accompanied by a Black woman named Betsey who worked under Barton during her time in the Sea Islands.[21] She quarreled with General Quincy Adams Gillmore after he suddenly ordered her to evacuate her post at Morris Island.[21] Also in the Sea Islands, she became acquainted with a Union officer, Colonel John J. Elwell. Historian Stephen B. Oates claims that Barton and Elwell had a romantic and sexual relationship.[22]

In 1864, she was appointed by Union General

Benjamin Butler as the "lady in charge" of the hospitals at the front of the Army of the James. Among her more harrowing experiences was an incident in which a bullet tore through the sleeve of her dress without striking her and killed a man to whom she was tending. She was known as the "Florence Nightingale of America".[23] She was also known as the "Angel of the Battlefield"[14][24] after she came to the aid of the overwhelmed surgeon on duty following the battle of Cedar Mountain in Northern Virginia in August 1862. She arrived at a field hospital at midnight with a large number of supplies to help the severely wounded soldiers. This naming came from her frequent timely assistance as she served troops at the battles of Fairfax Station, Chantilly, Harpers Ferry, South Mountain, Antietam, Fredericksburg, Charleston, Petersburg and Cold Harbor.[10][25]

Postwar

After the end of the American Civil War, Barton discovered that thousands of letters from distraught relatives to the War Department were going unanswered because the soldiers they were asking about were buried in unmarked graves. Many of the soldiers were labeled as "missing." Motivated to do more about the situation, Barton contacted President Lincoln in hopes that she would be allowed to respond officially to the unanswered inquiries. She was given permission, and "The Search for the Missing Men" commenced.[26]

After the war, she ran the Office of Missing Soldiers, at 437 ½ Seventh Street,

Andersonville prison camp, a Confederate prisoner-of-war camp in Georgia.[29] She continued this task over the next four years, burying 20,000 more Union soldiers and marking their graves.[26] Congress eventually appropriated $15,000 toward her project.[30]

The American Red Cross

Detail of Clara Barton monument at Antietam National Battlefield, with red cross formed of a brick from the home where she was born

Clara Barton achieved widespread recognition by delivering lectures around the country about her war experiences from 1865 to 1868. During this time she met

Red Cross and Dr. Appia; he later would invite her to be the representative for the American branch of the Red Cross and help her find financial benefactors for the start of the American Red Cross. She was also introduced to Henry Dunant's book A Memory of Solferino
, which called for the formation of national societies to provide relief voluntarily on a neutral basis.

In the beginning of the

Siege of Paris, and in 1871 had charge of the public distribution of supplies to the destitute people of Paris. At the close of the war, she received honorable decorations of the Golden Cross of Baden and the Prussian Iron Cross.[31]

When Barton returned to the United States, she inaugurated a movement to gain recognition for the

Chester Arthur, using the argument that the new American Red Cross
could respond to crises other than war such as natural disasters like earthquakes, forest fires, and hurricanes.

Barton became President of the American branch of the society, which held its first official meeting at her apartment in Washington, DC, May 21, 1881.[33] The first local society was founded August 22, 1881 in Dansville, Livingston County, New York, where she maintained a country home.[34][35]

The society's role changed with the advent of the Spanish–American War during which it aided refugees and prisoners of the civil war. Once the Spanish–American War was over the grateful people of Santiago built a statue in honor of Barton in the town square, which still stands there today. In the United States, Barton was praised in numerous newspapers and reported about Red Cross operations in person.[36]

Barton on a 2021 stamp of Armenia

Domestically in 1884 she helped in the floods on the Ohio river, provided Texas with food and supplies during the famine of 1887, took workers to Illinois in 1888 after a tornado, and that same year took workers to Florida for the yellow fever epidemic.

Galveston hurricane
in 1900. The operation established an orphanage for children.

Photo by James E. Purdy (1904)

As criticism arose of her mixing professional and personal resources, Barton was forced to resign as president of the American Red Cross in 1904 at the age of 83 because her egocentric leadership style fit poorly into the formal structure of an organizational charity.[10] She had been forced out of office by a new generation of all-male scientific experts who reflected the realistic efficiency of the Progressive Era rather than her idealistic humanitarianism.[39] In memory of the courageous women of the civil war, the Red Cross Headquarters was founded. During the dedication, not one person said a word. This was done in order to honor the women and their services.[40] After resigning, Barton founded the National First Aid Society.

Final years

She continued to live in her Glen Echo, Maryland home which also served as the Red Cross Headquarters upon her arrival at the house in 1897. Barton published her autobiography in 1908, titled The Story of My Childhood.[25] On April 12, 1912, she died in her home at the age of 90. The cause of death was pneumonia.

Religious beliefs

Although not formally a member of the Universalist Church of America,[41] in a 1905 letter to the widow of Carl Norman Thrasher, she identified herself with her parents' church as a "Universalist".[42]

My dear friend and sister:

Your belief that I am a Universalist is as correct as your greater belief that you are one yourself, a belief in which all who are privileged to possess it rejoice. In my case, it was a great gift, like St. Paul, I "was born free", and saved the pain of reaching it through years of struggle and doubt.

My father was a leader in the building of the church in which Hosea Ballow preached his first dedication sermon. Your historic records will show that the old Huguenot town of Oxford, Mass. erected one of, if not the first Universalist Church in America. In this town I was born; in this church I was reared. In all its reconstructions and remodelings I have taken a part, and I look anxiously for a time in the near future when the busy world will let me once more become a living part of its people, praising God for the advance in the liberal faith of the religions of the world today, so largely due to the teachings of this belief.

Give, I pray you, dear sister, my warmest congratulations to the members of your society. My best wishes for the success of your annual meeting, and accept my thanks most sincerely for having written me.

Fraternally yours, (Signed) Clara Barton.

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.[7]

Clara Barton National Historic Site

Clara Barton's home and site of American Red Cross.

In 1975, the

National Historic Site
dedicated to the accomplishments of a woman, it preserves the early history of the American Red Cross, since the home also served as an early headquarters of the organization.

The National Park Service restored eleven rooms, including the Red Cross offices, the parlors, and Barton's bedroom. Visitors to the house were able to gain a sense of how Barton lived and worked. Guides led tourists through the three levels, emphasizing Barton's use of her unusual home. In October 2015 the site was closed for repairs[43] and remained closed, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, through 2021.[44][45] The house reopened to the public in 2022, although the second and third floors of the house remain closed, due to "structural concerns".[46]

Clara Barton's Missing Soldiers Office

In 1869, Barton closed the Missing Soldiers Office and headed to Europe.[47] The third floor of her old boardinghouse was boarded up in 1913, and the site forgotten. The site was "lost" in part because Washington, DC realigned its addressing system in the 1870s. The boardinghouse became 437 ½ Seventh Street Northwest (formerly 488-1/2 Seventh Street West).

In 1997, General Services Administration carpenter Richard Lyons was hired to check out the building for its demolition. He found a treasure trove of Barton items in the attic, including signs, clothing, Civil War soldier's socks, an army tent, Civil War-era newspapers, and many documents relating to the Office of Missing Soldiers.[48] This discovery led to the NPS saving the building from demolition. It took years, however, for the site to be restored.[49] The Clara Barton's Missing Soldiers Office Museum, run by the National Museum of Civil War Medicine, opened in 2015.[50][51]

Fictional depictions

Places named for Clara Barton

Clara Barton – steel engraving by John Sartain

Schools

There are 25 schools named after Clara Barton

Streets

Other

Clara Barton Tree, Sequoia National Park (June 2022)

Other remembrances

Barton on a 1948 U.S. commemorative stamp
Andersonville National Historic Site

The Clara Barton Homestead, where Barton was born in Massachusetts is open to the public as a museum.

A stamp with a portrait of Barton and an image of the American Red Cross symbol was issued in 1948.[59]

Barton was inducted into the National Women's Hall of Fame in 1973.[3]

Barton was featured in 1995 in a set of U.S. stamps commemorating the Civil War.[60][61]

In 2019, Barton was announced as one of the members of the inaugural class of the Government Executive magazine's Government Hall of Fame.[62]

Exhibits in the east wing of the third floor, 3 East, of the National Museum of American History are focused on the United States at war. The Clara Barton Red Cross ambulance was at one point the signature artifact there but is no longer on display.

The school in the Disney show Sydney to the Max is named Clara Barton Middle School.

Clara Barton was inducted into the New Jersey Hall of Fame in 2008.

Published works

  • Barton, Clara H. The Red Cross: In Peace and War. Washington, D.C.: American Historical Press, 1898.
    OCLC 1187508
    .
  • Barton, Clara H. Story of the Red Cross: Glimpses of Field Work. New York: D. Appleton and Company, 1904.
    OCLC 5807882
    .
  • Barton, Clara H. The Story of My Childhood. New York: Baker & Taylor Company, 1907. Reprinted by Arno Press in 1980.
    OCLC 6015444
    .

References

  1. ^ Summers, Cole. "Clara Barton – Founder of the American Red Cross". Truth About Nursing. Retrieved May 5, 2017.
  2. ^ a b c Edward, James; Wilson, Janet; S. Boyer, Paul (1971). Notable American Women 1607–1950: A Biographical Dictionary,. Vol. 1. Cambridge, MA: Belknap Pr. pp. 103–107.
  3. ^ a b "Barton, Clara". National Women's Hall of Fame.
  4. ^ Mace, Emily. "Barton, Clara (1821-1912) | Harvard Square Library". Retrieved January 22, 2024.
  5. ^
    JSTOR 40067108
    .
  6. ^ a b c Barton, Clara (1980). The Story of My Childhood New York: Arno Press Inc
  7. ^
    ISBN 0812212738
  8. ISBN 978-0812212730
    .
  9. ^ Pryor, Elizabeth Brown (2000). "Barton, Clara". American National Biography
  10. ^ a b c Howard, Angela; M. Kavenik, Frances (1990). Handbook of American Women's History. Vol. 696. NY: Garland. pp. 61–62.
  11. S2CID 189875392
    .
  12. ^ "Clara Barton" Archived May 4, 2018, at the Wayback Machine, Dictionary of Unitarian & Universalist Biography
  13. ^
    ISBN 9781591022114
    .
  14. ^ a b "Clara Barton | American Red Cross Founder | Who is Clara Barton". American Red Cross. Retrieved December 9, 2016.
  15. ISBN 0029234050
    .
  16. ^
    ISBN 978-0762743841
    .
  17. ISBN 0029234050
    .
  18. ISBN 978-0700614370
    .
  19. ^ Snapshots, Historical (March 2, 2021). "Clara Barton: A snapshot biography". Historical Snapshots. Retrieved April 19, 2023.
  20. ^ a b c d Barton, Clara. "Clara Barton Papers: Diaries and Journals: 1863, Apr. 2-July 23". Library of Congress. Retrieved April 6, 2024.
  21. ^ a b c Barton, Clara. "Clara Barton Papers: Diaries and Journals: 1863, Dec. 3-1864, May 7". Library of Congress. Retrieved April 6, 2024.
  22. ISBN 0029234050
    .
  23. Houghton Mifflin
    . p. 115. Retrieved February 4, 2019 – via Google Books.
  24. ^ "Red Cross". History.com. August 19, 2021. Retrieved February 23, 2024.
  25. ^ a b "The Story of My Childhood". World Digital Library. 1907. Retrieved October 9, 2013.
  26. ^
    JSTOR 25119760
    .
  27. ^ Clara Barton Archived March 5, 2016, at the Wayback Machine. dcwriters.poetrymutual.org
  28. ^ "Clara Barton Missing Soldiers Office". National Museum of Civil War Medicine. Archived from the original on December 21, 2013. Retrieved June 30, 2014.
  29. ^ "Clara Barton and Andersonville". National Park Service. Retrieved January 30, 2016.
  30. ISBN 978-1626199736
    .
  31. ^ One or more of the preceding sentences incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Wilson, J. G.; Fiske, J., eds. (1900). "Barton, Clara" . Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography. New York: D. Appleton.
  32. ^ Epler, Percy Harold (1915). The Life of Clara Barton. Macmillan. Retrieved September 28, 2010.
  33. ^ Michals, Debra (2015). "Clara Barton". National Women's History Museum. Retrieved February 23, 2024.
  34. ^ Marks, Mary Jo. "History – Founder Clara Barton". American Red Cross. Retrieved May 21, 2014.
  35. ISBN 978-0671395308
    .
  36. ISBN 978-0226680101
    .
  37. ^
    ISBN 978-0671395308
    .
  38. ^ Ardalan, Christine (2010). "Clara Barton's 1898 battles in Cuba: a reexamination of her nursing contributions" (PDF). Florida Atlantic Comparative Studies Journal. 12 (1): 1–20. Archived (PDF) from the original on October 10, 2022.
  39. ^ Burton, David Henry (1995) Clara Barton: In the Service of Humanity. Greenwood.
  40. JSTOR 40067384
    .
  41. OCLC 16690792
    . Although not formally a Universalist by church membership, she had come of a Universalist family, was sympathetic to the tenets of the denomination, and has always been claimed by it.
  42. ^ "Positive Atheism website". Archived from the original on March 5, 2016. Retrieved May 25, 2007. Source taken from The Universalist Leader 120/49 1938.
  43. ^ "Operating Hours & Seasons". Clara Barton National Historic Site. Glen Echo, MD: National Park Service. August 21, 2016. Archived from the original on June 17, 2017.
  44. ^ "Operating Hours & Seasons". Clara Barton National Historic Site. March 23, 2020. Archived from the original on January 2, 2021.
  45. ^ Tousignant, Marylou (December 22, 2021). "Clara Barton, nurse and activist, spent a lifetime serving others". The Washington Post.
  46. ^ "Operating Hours & Seasons". Clara Barton National Historic Site. September 9, 2022.
  47. ^ "Clara Barton Chronology 1861–1869". National Park Service. Retrieved June 8, 2015.
  48. ^ "Clara Barton's Missing Soldiers Office: An Historic Rediscovery on 7th Street". Smithsonian Associates. July 2014. Retrieved September 23, 2015.
  49. ^ "Clara Barton's D.C. Office To Be Civil War Missing Soldiers Museum". HuffPost. April 12, 2012. Retrieved September 23, 2015.
  50. ^ "Clara Barton Missing Soldiers Office". Retrieved June 12, 2017.
  51. ISBN 978-1626199736
    .
  52. IMDb Edit this at Wikidata
  53. ^ "Clara Barton School No. 2 / Overview". rcsdk12.org.
  54. ^ "Our namesake: Clara Barton". Barton Associates. Barton. Retrieved April 15, 2024.
  55. ^ "Bartons Crossing Emergency (BCAC)". homelessshelterdirectory.org.
  56. National Archives
    .
  57. ^ "Trail Map of Big Trees Trail". Retrieved December 22, 2015.
  58. ^ "House of Clara Barton". July 26, 2019. Retrieved September 16, 2019.
  59. ^ 3c Clara Barton single (n.d.). "Arago: Clara Barton Issue". Arago.si.edu. Retrieved July 7, 2019.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
  60. ^ "#2975 1995 32c Civil WarUsed Sheet". www.mysticstamp.com.
  61. ^ "1995 32c Civil War". www.mysticstamp.com.
  62. ^ Shoop, Tom (August 15, 2019). "Inaugural Inductees into Government Hall of Fame Unveiled – Government Executive". Govexec.com. Retrieved August 16, 2019.

Further reading

Historiography

  • Amico, Eleanor B., ed. Reader's Guide to Women's Studies ( Fitzroy Dearborn, 1998) pp. 56–57

External links

Wikiquote has quotations related to Clara Barton.
Wikisource has the text of the 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica article "Barton, Clara".
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