Clara Barton was a pioneer in the field of nursing and one of the founders of the American Red Cross.
Barton realised that she was destined to become a nurse when her brother David became seriously ill after a barn-raising accident, 11 year old Barton nursed him for two years. After David recovered Barton was sent to a private boarding school, she was sent home after her shyness affected her health. A noted phrenologist recommended that she become a teacher to overcome her shyness.
At 15 Barton took the teacher’s exam and became a teacher, she enthralled her students and refused to discipline them physically although corporal punishment was the norm. Six years after she began teaching she enrolled at the Clinton Liberal Institute in Clinton, New York to further her studies. She then moved to New Jersey where there were no public schools, with support from the local community she opened the first free public school in the area. The school was such a success that the community built a new school, unfortunately for Barton they hired a man to run it at twice her salary. Barton resigned and moved to Washington, D.C. where she became the first female clerk at the U.S. Patent Office.
Barton left the Patent Office during the Civil War. In the beginning she collected and distributed supplies for the Union Army. She built up a volunteer supply network by urging friends in Massachusetts, New York, and New Jersey to help. Later she serving as an independent nurse, she first saw combat in Fredericksburg, Virginia, in 1862. Barton was nicknamed “the angel of the battlefield” for her work caring for soldiers.
When the war ended in 1865 Barton as appointed by President Abraham Lincoln to reunite missing soldiers and their families. She set up Friends of the Missing Men of the United States Army using her own funds and the help of volunteers. She was tasked with locating and identifying prisoners, missing men, and the dead buried in unmarked graves. She helped to identify around 22,000 missing men.
Barton then toured throughout the Northeast and Midwest, lecturing on her Civil War experiences. She often lectured with other popular speakers including woman-suffrage leaders Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony. Barton firmly aligned herself with the suffrage movement. Her tour took its toll on her health and in 1869 her doctor ordered her to Europe for a rest.
While in Europe Barton worked with the International Red Cross during the Franco-Prussian War of 1870–’71. On her return to the United States, she lobbied for an American branch of this international organisation. Barton’s health declined and nervous exhaustion caused her to temporarily lose her eyesight. She went to England to recuperate before returning to the United States.
After Barton recovered she focused on publicising the International Red Cross and gathering support for an American Red Cross. In May 1881 the American Red Cross was established, weeks later she was elected its president. As president Barton oversaw assistance and relief work for the victims of disasters like the 1881 Michigan forest fires, the 1889 Johnstown Flood and the 1900 Galveston Flood. The American Red Cross also provided relief internationally, helping victims of the Russian famine in 1892, to Armenians in Turkish-controlled Armenia in 1896 and in 1898 Barton travelled with nurses to Cuba during the Spanish-American War to nurse the wounded and provide supplies and food.
In 1904 Barton resigned from the American Red Cross following internal power struggles after U.S. Congress had granted the American Red Cross a charter making it responsible for fulfilling the provisions of the Geneva Conventions, providing family and other support to the U.S. military, and providing a system for disaster relief.
Barton established the National First Aid Association of America which provided basic first aid instruction and emergency preparedness, she served as honorary president for five years. In 1912 she died at home in Maryland.