64 Facts About Clara Barton

Clarissa Harlowe Barton was an American nurse who founded the American Red Cross.

Clara Barton was a hospital nurse in the American Civil War, a teacher, and a patent clerk.

Clara Barton is noteworthy for doing humanitarian work and civil rights advocacy at a time before women had the right to vote.

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

Clarissa Harlowe Clara Barton was born on December 25,1821, in North Oxford, Massachusetts, and was named after the titular character of Samuel Richardson's novel Clarissa.

Clara Barton's father was Captain Stephen Barton, a member of the local militia and a selectman who inspired his daughter with patriotism and a broad humanitarian interest.

Clara Barton was a soldier under the command of General Anthony Wayne in his crusade against the Indigenous in the northwest.

Clara Barton was the leader of progressive thought in the Oxford village area.

When she was three years old, Clara Barton was sent to school with her brother Stephen, where she excelled in reading and spelling.

At school, she became close friends with Nancy Fitts; she is the only known friend Clara Barton had as a child due to her extreme timidity.

When Clara Barton was ten years old, she assigned herself the task of nursing her brother David back to health for two years after he fell from the roof of a barn and received a severe head injury.

Clara Barton learned how to distribute the prescribed medication to her brother, as well as how to place leeches on his body to bleed him.

Clara Barton continued to care for David long after doctors had given up.

Clara Barton's parents tried to help cure her timidity by enrolling her to Colonel Stones High School, but their strategy turned out to be a catastrophe.

Clara Barton became more timid and depressed and would not eat.

Clara Barton was brought back home to regain her health.

The house that the Clara Barton family was to live in needed to be painted and repaired.

Clara Barton was persistent in offering assistance, much to the gratitude of her family.

Clara Barton began to play with her boy cousins and to their surprise, she was good at keeping up with such activities as horseback riding.

Clara Barton's mother decided she should focus on more ladylike skills.

Clara Barton invited one of Clara's girl cousins over to help develop her femininity.

Clara Barton achieved her first teacher's certificate in 1839, at 17 years old.

Clara Barton became an educator in 1838 and served for 12 years in schools in Canada and West Georgia.

Clara Barton fared well as a teacher; she knew how to handle children, particularly the boys since as a child she enjoyed her boy cousins' and brothers' company.

Clara Barton learned how to act like them, making it easier for her to relate to and control the boys in her care.

Clara Barton decided to further her education by pursuing writing and languages at the Clinton Liberal Institute in New York.

Clara Barton was successful, and after a year she had hired another woman to help teach over 600 people.

Once completed, though, Clara Barton was replaced as principal by a man elected by the school board.

Clara Barton was demoted to "female assistant" and worked in a harsh environment until she had a nervous breakdown along with other health ailments, and quit.

The victims, members of the 6th Massachusetts Militia, were transported after the violence to the unfinished Capitol Building in Washington DC, where Clara Barton lived at the time.

Clara Barton provided crucial, personal assistance to the men in uniform, many of whom were wounded, hungry and without supplies other than what they carried on their backs.

Clara Barton personally took supplies to the building to help the soldiers.

Clara Barton quickly recognized them, as she had grown up with some of them and even taught some.

Clara Barton learned how to store and distribute medical supplies and offered emotional support to the soldiers by keeping their spirits high.

Clara Barton would read books to them, write letters to their families for them, talk to them, and support them.

Clara Barton gained support from other people who believed in her cause.

Clara Barton worked to distribute stores, clean field hospitals, apply dressings, and serve food to wounded soldiers in close proximity to several battles, including Cedar Mountain, Second Bull Run, Antietam, and Fredericksburg.

At the battle of Antietam, for example, Clara Barton used corn-husks in place of bandages.

Clara Barton was known as the "Florence Nightingale of America".

Clara Barton was known as the "Angel of the Battlefield" after she came to the aid of the overwhelmed surgeon on duty following the battle of Cedar Mountain in Northern Virginia in August 1862.

Clara Barton arrived at a field hospital at midnight with a large number of supplies to help the severely wounded soldiers.

Clara Barton was given permission, and "The Search for the Missing Men" commenced.

Clara Barton spent the summer of 1865 helping find, identify, and properly bury 13,000 individuals who died in Andersonville prison camp, a Confederate prisoner-of-war camp in Georgia.

Clara Barton continued this task over the next four years, burying 20,000 more Union soldiers and marking their graves.

Clara Barton became acquainted with Frederick Douglass and became an activist for civil rights.

Clara Barton closed the Missing Soldiers Office in 1868 and traveled to Europe.

In 1869, during her trip to Geneva, Switzerland, Clara Barton was introduced to the Red Cross and Dr Appia; he later would invite her to be the representative for the American branch of the Red Cross and help her find financial benefactors for the start of the American Red Cross.

Clara Barton was introduced to Henry Dunant's book A Memory of Solferino, which called for the formation of national societies to provide relief voluntarily on a neutral basis.

When Clara Barton returned to the United States, she inaugurated a movement to gain recognition for the International Committee of the Red Cross by the United States government.

Clara Barton finally succeeded during the administration of President Chester Arthur, using the argument that the new American Red Cross could respond to crises other than war such as natural disasters like earthquakes, forest fires, and hurricanes.

Clara Barton became President of the American branch of the society, which held its first official meeting at her I Street apartment in Washington, DC, May 21,1881.

In 1896, responding to the humanitarian crisis in the Ottoman Empire of the Hamidian massacres, Clara Barton arrived in Constantinople February 15.

Clara Barton herself stayed in Constantinople to conduct the business of the expedition.

Clara Barton worked in hospitals in Cuba in 1898 at the age of 77.

Clara Barton had been forced out of office by a new generation of all-male scientific experts who reflected the realistic efficiency of the Progressive Era rather than her idealistic humanitarianism.

Clara Barton continued to live in her Glen Echo, Maryland home which served as the Red Cross Headquarters upon her arrival at the house in 1897.

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

Visitors to the house were able to gain a sense of how Clara Barton lived and worked.

In 1869, Clara Barton closed the Missing Soldiers Office and headed to Europe.

Clara Barton found a treasure trove of Barton items in the attic, including signs, clothing, Civil War soldier's socks, an army tent, Civil War-era newspapers, and many documents relating to the Office of Missing Soldiers.

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

Clara Barton was featured in 1995 in a set of US stamps commemorating the Civil War.

In 2019, Clara Barton was announced as one of the members of the inaugural class of the Government Executive magazine's Government Hall of Fame.

Clara Barton was inducted into the New Jersey Hall of Fame in 2008.