Clara Barton was a true pioneer. She began teaching school at a time when most teachers were still men. She won the right to a desk job in Washington at a time when women were required to do their work at home.
Miss Barton was born in North Oxford, Massachusetts, on December 25, 1821. She was raised on a small farm and became a schoolteacher, then a government worker in Washington, DC.
American Civil War Service
In 1861 Miss Barton, then 40 years old, was working in Washington when the first units of Federal troops poured into the city. The war was young, the troops newly recruited, and the population alarmed and confused. Miss Barton saw the need for immediate personal service to the men in uniform. Some were wounded, some hungry, and some without any clothing except what they had on their backs. She joined with other women who gave service on behalf of such groups as the U.S. Sanitary Commission. She collected some of the necessary articles herself, appealed for more, and learned how to store and distribute them. Miss Barton paid equal attention to the personal services that kept up the mens' spirits: she read to them, wrote letters for them, listened to their personal problems, and prayed with them.
She kept after leaders in both the government and the army until she was given a pass to bring volunteer services to battlegrounds and field hospitals. After the battle at Cedar Mountain, she appeared at a field hospital at night with a four-mule-team load of supplies. Wrote the surgeon, "I thought that night if heaven ever sent out a holy angel, she must be the one, her assistance was so timely." Thereafter she was known as "the Angel of the Battlefield."
At Antietam, by ordering the driver of her supply wagon to "follow the cannon", she brought needed food to the troops, dressings to the surgeons, and lanterns to light the work of the medical staff at night. She herself nursed, comforted, and cooked food for the wounded. She wrote, "The point I always tried to make was to [assist] the wounded until medical aid and supplies could come up - I could run the risk; it mad no difference to anyone if I were shot or taken prisoner." At Fredricksburg, she crossed a bridge shaken by artillery fire to help a federal surgeon. A bursting shell tore her clothing. On reaching the field hospital, she gave comfort and care to the wounded and dying through the night and into the next day.
Her interest in her "soldier boys" as individuals and the multitude of services she performed for them gave her a great fund of information about the men and the regiments to which they belonged. Toward the end of the war, she was writing many letters to families who had inquired about men reported missing. Again she had realized a need and had set about doing something practical in response to it. President Lincoln wrote the following note in the month before he was assassinated: "To the Friends of Missing Persons: Miss Clara Barton has kindly offered to search for the missing prisoners of war. Please address her at Annapolis, giving her the name, regiment, and company of any missing prisoner." The service thus set in motion anticipated one of the worldwide operations of today's International Red Cross.
One further achievement climaxed Miss Barton's Civil War activity. She proposed that a national cemetery be created around the graves of the men who died in Andersonville Prison and that the graves be marked where the names are known. She also proposed that the unknown be memorialized. Here she anticipated the honor now symbolized by the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. After Miss Barton had helped to raise the flag over the Andersonville grounds at their dedication in 1865, she wrote, "I ought to be satisfied. I believe I am." Coming events were to show, however, that she would never be satisfied except by responding again and again to the call of human need. In the 1880's she would appeal to the veterans to support women's rights, asking them to stand by her as she had stood by them.
The International Red Cross
When Miss Barton sailed for Europe in 1869 in search of rest, she found there a still wider field for service. Friends in Geneva, Switzerland introduced her to the Red Cross idea, and she read for the first time the famous book A Memory of Solferino by Henry Dunant, founder of the Red Cross Movement. The movement called for international agreements for the protection of sick and wounded during wartime and for the formation of voluntary national societies to give aid on a neutral basis. The first treaty embodying Dunant's idea had been drawn up in Geneva in 1864. This treaty has been variously called the Geneva Treaty, the Red Cross Treaty, and the Geneva Convention. Later Miss Barton fought hard and successfully for the signing of the treaty by the United States.
A more immediate call to action came to her with the outbreak of the Franco-Prussion War in 1870. Though not yet allied to the Red Cross, she knew the needs of war and went to the war zone with volunteers of the International Red Cross. To protect herself with the internationally accepted symbol, she used a red ribbon she was wearing and made a cross to pin to her coat; it was characteristic that the first Red Cross symbol she wore was one she made herself. She helped to distribute relief supplies to the destitute in the conquered city of Strasbourg and elsewhere in France. She also opened workrooms where the inhabitants of the city could help themselves by making new clothes, thus anticipating the production of great quantities of clothes and comfort articles by the American Red Cross in later years.
Founding and Leading the American Red Cross
After her return to the United States, Miss Barton corresponded with Red Cross officials in Switzerland. They looked upon her as the natural leader for carrying the Red Cross movement to this country and for influencing the United States government to sign the Geneva Treaty. In 1877, the head of the International Committee of the Red Cross sent her a letter addressed to the President of the United States, asking her to present it. Although she presented the letter, the administration of President Hayes looked upon the Geneva Treaty as a possible "entangling alliance." She was determined and kept up her efforts until President Arthur signed and the Senate ratified the treaty in 1882.
In 1881, Miss Barton and a group of supporters formed the American Association of the Red Cross as a District of Columbus Corporation. Re-incorporated as the American National Red Cross in 1893, the organization was given charters by Congress in 1900 and 1905. The 1905 charter and its amendments provide a basis for today's American Red Cross and nurture close working relations between the federal government and the American Red Cross. The American Red Cross, with Miss Barton at its head, devoted itself largely to disaster relief for the first 20 years of its existence. The Red Cross flag was flown officially for the first time in this country in 1881 when Miss Barton was appealing for funds and clothing in Dansville, New York to aid victims of forest fires in Michigan. In 1884, she chartered steamers to take supplies down the Ohio and Mississippi rivers to help flooded families. In 1889, she helped to relieve Johnstown, Pennsylvania, after its great flood. In 1892, she organized assistance for Russians suffering from famine, and in 1896, she directed disaster relief operations in Turkey and Armenia.
Miss Barton introduced the idea of Red Cross disaster relief to many other national societies, and many foreign countries honored her with decorations. She was one of three United States delegates to the Third International Red Cross Conference in Geneva in 1884; she was the only woman delegate present. Her personality and prestige influenced the proceedings of other International Red Cross Conferences, such as the sixth, in Vienna (1897), and the seventh, in St. Petersburg (1902).
Miss Barton's most significant act during her closing years as head of the American Red Cross was to take Red Cross supplies and services to Cuba during the Spanish-American War. Miss Barton, then 76 years old, went to Cuba with her nursing corps, medical supplies, and food. Aid was given to the American forces, to prisoners of war, and to Cuban refugees. This effort was the first step toward the broad programs of service to the armed forces and to civilians during wartime that have become traditional in the American Red Cross. On resigning as president of the organization in 1904, Miss Barton left a foundation of service to humanity for others to build on.
A Life of Contrasts
Miss Barton, born in North Oxford, Massachusetts, lived from Christmas Day 1821 to April 12, 1912. She spent her last days at home in Glen Echo, Maryland.
In addition to leading the Red Cross, Miss Barton interested herself in other fields - education, prison reform, women's suffrage, and even spiritualism. Her force and independent spirit created opponents, but her charm attracted many loyal followers. Periods of illness struck from time to time during her life, strangely departing when a calamity struck somewhere. She rose early and worked late into the night. As a child, she kept up with her brothers, riding and taking part in their games despite her small frame. She was said to be somewhat vain in her appearance, particularly her hair, although she did not consider herself a pretty woman. She liked dashes of bold color, especially red, on her clothing.
Miss Barton had a talent for words. She was ready to spell three-syllable words when she started school at age four. Throughout her life she wrote voluminously, often daily. She had great skill as a speaker. Veterans attending her lectures were often moved to tears as she vividly described battlefield conditions. She also had great charisma and could quickly rally volunteers to meet most crises threatening the country. By her actions she impressed her cause and her personality upon her country and upon the world.
Clara Barton died on April 12, 1912, in Glen Echo, Maryland.