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"You must never so much as think whether you like it or not, whether it is bearable or not; you must never think of anything except the need, and how to meet it." Clara Barton demonstrated how firmly she believed this statement by her devotion to war relief throughout her life.
Clara Barton was known and loved for her independent nursing and relief for soldiers of the United States Civil War. Her energy and compassion were renowned among soldiers and civilians alike. She was called "The Angel of the Battlefield".
Clarissa Harlowe Barton was born on Christmas Day, December 25, 1821 to Captain Stephen Barton and his wife Sarah. She was the youngest of five children. Her sister Dorothy taught her to write and spell and by the time she formally started school at age four she could read and spell three syllable words. Stephen taught her arithmetic, Sally taught her geography, and David coached her in athletics. By the time she entered the formal classroom, school work came easily to young Clara, but she was always very shy.
Barton began teaching at the age of 17, and at the age of 23 opened her own school in North Oxford, Massachusetts. At the age of 29 she entered the Liberal Institute, an advanced school for female teachers in Clinton, New York. She pursued writing and learning French in her spare time.
After attending the Liberal Institute for a year, Clara Barton taught for a time in New Jersey, and then opened a free school in Bordentown. That school eventually had six hundred students. However, the school district refused to formally give her the Director's job at the school she herself had started and gave it instead to a man. She quit teaching in frustration and went to work as a copier in the US Patent office in Washington DC.
When the Civil War broke out, Barton quit her job and at age 40 went to work as a volunteer supporting the war effort, procuring bandages, socks and other provisions for wounded soldiers. In 1862, she got permission to deliver goods directly to front lines, and she did so for two years. Then she was named superintendent of Union Nurses.
Following the war she started a letter writing campaign to try to find missing soldiers, and lectured extensively about her experiences during the war. Discoveries by Gary Scott, a regional historian for the National Parks Service, indicate that she was probably the first missing persons specialist and ran a government bureau called "The Missing Soldiers Office". A former prisoner of war who had been held in Andersonville, Georgia, brought her a list of the names of soldiers who had been captured by the Confederacy. She took the list back to Andersonville and was able to identify the graves of thousands of soldiers. Some 13,000 of the 40,000 union soldiers detained at Andersonville died of exposure, disease and starvation. Clara Barton was able to provide answers to thousands of families about the fates, and final resting places, of their men. She also found out what had become of many deserters. Her work helped to locate some 22,000 soldiers between 1865 and 1868.
She was also active in the Woman Suffrage movement. But the war and her work afterward were exhausting and she was in poor health. In 1869 she went to Europe, presumably to rest, but she kept very busy while overseas.
During the trip she learned about the Geneva Treaty which had been signed by several countries. The treaty promised certain standards of decency toward prisoners of war. The United States, however, had refused to sign it. In addition, Barton learned of an organization called the Red Cross which brought aid to soldiers in times of war. Although she was not allowed to work as part of the International Red Cross because she was a woman, she wasted little time resting as she volunteered as a relief worker during the Franco-Prussian War, stationed at Strasbourg, France.
She returned to the United States and, working with Senator Omar Congor of Michigan, she founded the American Association of the Red Cross (later called the American Red Cross) in 1881. She served as the first President. The American Red Cross differed from the International Red Cross in that it provided relief in times of war and of peace, while the International organization was for war time relief only.
She lobbied heavily to get the United States to ratify the Geneva Convention. It was signed in 1882.
Barton served as American Red Cross President until 1904, speaking, and offering aid to victims of floods, hurricanes and other disasters. She resigned when criticisms of her leadership style caused the organization to seek a more centralized management organization.
She lived until April 12,1912, when she died of complications from a cold. She was ninety one years old.
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