Clara Barton
Teacher
Founder of American Red Cross
1821-1912
And the man liveth not who could say to them nay;
They would stand with you now, as they stood with you
then,
The nurses, consolers, and saviors of men.
-Closing lines from Clara Barton's poem, "The Women Who Went to the Fields"
Clarissa Harlowe "Clara" Barton was born on Christmas Day, 1821. She was the daughter of Stephen Barton and Sally Stone and the youngest of five children, having older two brothers and two older sisters. Being born ten years after the youngest of her siblings made it seem as if she was an only child.
Clara entered the work force first as a teacher - starting at fifteen years of age by establishing a school for the children of the workers at her father's sawmill. This small success encouraged her and she took another teaching position in New Jersey. As luck would have it, Clara eventually resigned that position and turned her attention to the American Civil War. Clara became known as the "Angel of the Battlefield, caring for the wounded on both sides - an unheard of thing for that time period.
After becoming familiar with the work of the International Red Cross in Europe, she organized a similar group in the United States in 1881 - the American Red Cross - and servied as its first president. She was also rewarded for her hospital work during the France-Prussian War with the Iron Cross of Germany. After the war she helped staff a missing soldier's bureau in Washington D.C. which helped gather identification records for the missing and the dead.
Clara died in Echo Glen, Maryland on April 12, 1912. She was buried in the family plot in Oxford, MA. Although both brothers and one of her sisters married, there is no proof that Clara ever did.