Clara Barton

EARLY LIFE

Clarissa "Clara" Barton was born December 25, 1821, in North Oxford, Massachusetts, to Captain Stephen Barton, a member of the local militia and a selectman (politician)  and Sarah Stone Barton

She was named after the titular character of Samuel Richardson's novel Clarissa. 

Clara Barton – steel engraving by John Sartain

She nearly died aged 5 after being stricken with blood dysentery and convulsions. Her family assumed she would not survive, and a report went out that Clara had passed away. Happily, she made a full recovery.

Her father inspired Clara with patriotism and a broad humanitarian interest.  He was a soldier under the command of General Anthony Wayne in his crusade against the Indigenous in the northwest. Captain Barton was also the leader of progressive thought in the Oxford village area.

An adventurous and strong-willed daughter, Clara was educated at home, chiefly by her four brothers and sisters.

Clara nursed her invalid brother David for two years from the age of 10  after he fell from the roof during a barn raising and received a severe head injury.

EARLY  CAREER

Clara became a teacher at age 15, working for different schools in Canada and West Georgia for 12 years.

In 1852, Barton was contracted to open a free school in Bordentown, which was the first ever free school in New Jersey. It grew so large that local leaders believing being head of a large institution to be unfitting for a woman  refused to let her run it and brought in a male principal. Barton was demoted to "female assistant" and had a nervous breakdown along with other health ailments, so she quit.

She worked in the US Patent Office in Washington, from 1854. Clara Barton held a clerkship in the US Patent Office with pay equal to that of men. She was the first woman to hold a position or pay of this type in government. Being wrongly fired in 1857 she returned under Abraham Lincoln as a copyist to help pave the way for future women's equality in government.

CIVIL WAR

Barton resigned from the Patent Office at the start of the American Civil War to work as a volunteer, distributing supplies to wounded soldiers.

After the Union defeat at the First Battle of Bull Run in July 1861, Barton advertised for provisions for the wounded, and received such a large contribution that she set herself up as a distributing agency. 

From mid-July 1862, Barton operated as a freelance front-line nurse, distributing comforts and tending the sick and wounded of the Army of the Potomac. 

She served as superintendent of nurses for the Army of the James (1864), her only official connection, but Baron had difficulty taking orders and preferred to work on her own. 

Barton's most supportive patron during the Civil War was Massachusetts Senator Henry Wilson

POST CIVIL WAR

After the war, Barton supervised a systematic search for missing soldiers. 

Clara Barton c 1866

Between 1869 and 1873 Barton lived in Europe, where she helped establish hospitals and distribute relief to the French during the Franco-Prussian War. She was honored with the Iron Cross of Germany.

RED CROSS

When Barton returned to the USA, she campaigned for the establishment of an American Red Cross. Through Barton’s efforts the American Red Cross Society was formed in 1881; she served as the first president of the organization until 1904. 

In 1884 Barton represented the United States at the Red Cross Conference and at the International Peace Convention in Geneva. She was responsible for the introduction at this convention of the "American amendment," which established that the Red Cross was to serve victims of peacetime disasters as well as victims of war. 

Clara Barton. Photo by James E. Purdy (1904)

Her Glen Echo, Maryland home also served as the Red Cross Headquarters upon her arrival to the house in 1897.

PERSONAL LIFE

Although not formally a member of the Universalist Church of America, Barton identified herself with her parents' church as a "Universalist".

Barton never married or had children. She had several nieces and nephews on whom she lavished her attention. 

Clara's brother David taught her to ride a horse, a skill she loved and enjoyed throughout her long life.

Barton recalled in The Story of My Childhood, her first pet, a dog she named Button, was “a sprightly, medium-sized, very white dog, with silky ears, sparkling black eyes and a very short tail.” 

Barton loved cats. Her favorite was Tommy, her faithful black-and-white companion for almost two decades.

LATER YEARS AND DEATH

Within days after the Johnstown Flood in Pennsylvania in 1889, Barton led her delegation of 50 doctors and nurses in response. 

Other relief work Barton superintended included in the yellow-fever pestilence in Florida (1887), the Russian famine (1891), among the Armenians (1896), in the Spanish-American War (1898), and in the South African War (1899–1902). 

The last work that Barton personally directed was the relief of victims of the flood at Galveston, Texas, in 1900. 

Barton published her autobiography in 1908, titled The Story of My Childhood

She died in her Glen Echo, Maryland home on April 12, 1912, at the age of 90. The cause of death was pneumonia.

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

Sources Mentalfloss, Funk & Wagnalls Encyclopedia