Clara
Barton
was born in Oxford, Massachusetts, on 25th December, 1821. The daughter
of a farmer, Barton began work as a schoolteacher at the age of fifteen.
In 1850 Barton moved to New York where
she attended the Clinton Liberal Institute. Two years later she moved
to Bordentown, New Jersey, where she established a free school. The
school was very popular and grew rapidly. This upset the local men
in the town and they tried to insist that the school should be run
by a man. Barton refused and moved to Washington
where she found work as a clerk in the U.S. Patent Office. In doing
so, Barton became one of the first women to join the civil service.
On the outbreak of the American Civil War,
Barton became a strong supporter of the Union cause. After hearing
about the heavy casualties at Bull Run,
Barton advertised in newspapers for medical supplies for the wounded.
The response was so good that she was able to set up an agency distributing
goods to soldiers. This involved the hiring of mules and wagons to
take the supplies to the battlefields.
In July, 1862, Barton went to the front-line where she worked as an
unpaid nurse for the Army of the Potomac. Barton continued as a freelance
nurse until June, 1864, when she was employed as superintendent of
nurses for the Army of the James. The following year President Abraham
Lincoln appointed her as head of the Bureau of Records, a unit
that attempted to search for missing soldiers.
After the war Barton toured Europe and when the Franco-German War
broke out in 1870, she organized the distribution of supplies to the
French Army. During this period she became
associated with the International Red Cross
and after her return to the United States in 1873, Barton campaign
to persuade the USA to sign the Geneva Convention.
This was an agreement which established rules for the care of the
sick and wounded in war.
In 1877 Barton organized the American
National Committee, which three years later became the American Red
Cross. The USA signed the Geneva Convention
in 1884 and Congress agreed to support Barton's efforts to distribute
relief during floods, earthquakes, famines, cyclones and other peacetime
disasters.
The author of the History
of the Red Cross
(1882), Barton served as president of the American
Red Cross
between 1882 and 1904. Other books by Barton include The
Red Cross in Peace and War
(1899) and The
Story of My Childhood
(1907). Clara Barton died in Glen Echo, Maryland,
on 12th April, 1912.
Available from Amazon Books
(order below)
