A WOMAN'S BRIDGE

Clara Barton: The Founder of the American Red Cross

5/13/2011

 
Picture

By Yoon Joung Lee

A pioneer American teacher, nurse, and humanitarian, Clara Barton, was born in 1832 in Oxford, Massachusetts.  She was the youngest child of five in a middle-class family.  Her father, Stephen Barton, was a farmer and horse breeder and her mother, Sarah Barton, managed the household.

When she was 12, her brother David fell from a rafter in their unfinished barn.  For 3 years, she stayed at his side and took care of him as her first patient.  During this time, she learned to administer all his medicines, and became interested in the field of nursing.


In 1861, her lifetime of philanthropy began as she organized a relief program to obtain and distribute supplies to wounded soldiers after the First Battle of Bull Run during the Civil War.  This independent organization, advertising for donations in the Worcester, Mass., Spy, was established when she learned many wounded soldiers from the battle had suffered from need of medical supplies.  And this relief program was successful.

The following year,  U.S. Surgeon General William A. Hammond allowed her to ride in army ambulances to provide comfort to the soldiers and nurse them back to health.  For 3 years, she followed army operations reaching the actual battlefields of the war during the Siege of Petersburg and Richmond, Virginia.  There, she cared for the casualties from the Battle of the Wilderness and also did nursing work at Bermuda Hundred.  In 1884, she was appointed as superintendent of nurses at the front of the Army of the James, by Union General Benjamin Butler. In 1865, in President Abraham Lincoln’s command, she became in charge of the search for the missing soldiers of the Union Army.   She was able to find out the status of missing men  and notify their families as she interviewed with Federals returning from Southern prisons.

At the end of the war, she traveled to Geneva, Switzerland.  There, she was introduced to the Red Cross.  When she came back to the States, she led a movement to gain recognition for the International Red Cross by the United States government.  In 1881, she finally founded the new American Red Cross in Dansville, N.Y. and became President of the American branch of the society. She resigned as head of the organization in 1904.  She spent the rest of her life at her hometown, Glen Echo, outside Washington, D.C.,  and passed away  in 1912.

    Archives

    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014
    February 2014
    September 2013
    July 2013
    June 2013
    May 2013
    April 2013
    March 2013
    February 2013
    January 2013
    December 2012
    November 2012
    October 2012
    September 2012
    August 2012
    July 2012
    June 2012
    May 2012
    April 2012
    March 2012
    February 2012
    January 2012
    December 2011
    November 2011
    October 2011
    September 2011
    August 2011
    July 2011
    June 2011
    May 2011
    April 2011
    March 2011
    February 2011
    January 2011
    December 2010
    November 2010
    October 2010
    September 2010
    August 2010
    July 2010
    June 2010

    Categories

    All
    Amelia Earhart
    American South
    Amy Beach
    Anna Nzinga
    Anna Sewell
    Anna Wintour
    Anne Bronte
    Barbra Steisand
    Baroness Blixen
    Benazir Bhutto
    Billie Jean King
    Blackfeet Nation
    Brigitte Bardot
    Bronte Sisters
    Catherine The Great
    Charlotte Bronte
    Cheng I Sao
    Civil Rights Movement
    Clara Barton
    Cleopatra
    Cristina Fernandes De Kirchner
    Dagmar Wilson
    Dido Belle
    Dilma Rousseff
    Dorothy Kamenshek
    Edith Wharton
    Eleanor Of Aquitaine
    Elouise Cobell
    Emily Bronte
    Fannie Flagg
    Frances Glessner Lee
    Frida Kahlo
    Gabby Douglas
    Geun Hye Park
    Gone With The Wind
    Hannah Snell
    Harper Lee
    Harriet Tubman
    Hatshepsut
    Heian Period
    Helen Keller
    Hillary Rodham Clinton
    Ho Ching
    Hypatia Of Alexandria
    Intro
    Irena Sendler
    Isabelle Scott
    Jamestown
    Jane Eyre
    Jane Goodall
    Jaqueline Kennedy Onassis
    Jody Williams
    Josephine Baker
    Journalism
    Joy Ogwu
    Julia Ward Howe
    Laurie Marker
    Madeleine Korbel Albright
    Margaret Bourke-White
    Margaret Mitchell
    Margaret Thatcher
    Margot Wallstrom
    Maria Otero
    Marilyn Monroe
    Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings
    Mary Poppins
    Maya Angelou
    Meip Gies
    Meryl Streep
    Mother Theresa
    Murasaki Shikibu
    Nellie Bly
    Patricia Cloherty
    Pl Travers
    Pocahontas
    Rachel Carson
    Rosalind Franklin
    Rosa Parks
    Rosemary Kennedy
    Ruth Harkness
    Sally Ride
    Sheila Johnson
    Song Qingling
    Sophie Scholl
    Sylvia Plath
    The Shriver Report
    To Kill A Mockingbird
    Trudy Harsh
    Vera Wang
    Victorian Era
    Women Journalists In Pakistan
    WWII
    Yearling

    RSS Feed