Born: 25 December 1821, United States
Died: 12 April 1912
Country most active: United States
Also known as: NA
This biography is reprinted in full with permission from the National Women’s History Museum (United States of America). It was edited by Debra Michals, PhD (2015). NWHM biographies are generously supported by Susan D. Whiting. All rights reserved.
An educator and humanitarian, Clarissa “Clara” Harlowe Barton helped distribute needed supplies to the Union Army during the Civil War and later founded the disaster relief organization, the American Red Cross.
Born on December 25, 1821 in Oxford, Massachusetts, Barton was the youngest of Stephen and Sarah Barton’s five children. Her father was a prosperous farmer. As a teenager, Barton helped care for her seriously ill brother David—her first experience as a nurse.
Barton’s family directed their painfully shy daughter to become a teacher upon the recommendation of renowned phrenologist L.N. Fowler, who examined her as a girl. She began teaching at age 18, founded a school for workers’ children at her brother’s mill when she was 24, and after moving to Bordentown, New Jersey, established the first free school there in 1852. She resigned when she discovered that the school had hired a man at twice her salary, saying she would never work for less than a man.
In 1854 she was hired as a recording clerk at the US Patent Office in Washington, DC, the first woman appointed to such a post. She was paid $1,400 annually, the same as her male colleagues. However, the following year, Secretary of the Interior Robert McClelland, who opposed women working in government, reduced her to copyist with a lower salary. In 1857, the Buchanan Administration eliminated her position entirely, but in 1860, she returned as copyist after the election of President Abraham Lincoln.
When the Civil War began in 1861, Barton quit her job and made it her mission to bring supplies to Union soldiers in need—among them, men of the 6th Massachusetts Infantry. This started a life-long career of aiding people in times of conflict and disaster. In 1862, she received official permission to transport supplies to battlefields and was at every major battle in Maryland, Virginia, and South Carolina, where she also tended to the wounded and became known as the “angel of the battlefield.” She was officially named head nurse for one of General Benjamin Butler’s units in 1864, even though she had no formal medical training. She joined Frances Gage in helping to prepare slaves for their lives in freedom. After the war, Barton helped locate missing soldiers, mark thousands of graves, and testified in Congress about her wartime experiences.
In 1869, Barton traveled through Europe to regain her health. While in Switzerland, she learned about the International Red Cross, established in Geneva in 1864. Returning to the US, Barton built support for the creation of an American society of the Red Cross by writing pamphlets, lecturing, and meeting with President Rutherford B. Hayes. On May 21, 1881, the American Association of the Red Cross was formed; Barton was elected president in June. In 1882, the US joined the International Red Cross.
Barton remained with the Red Cross until 1904, attending national and international meetings, aiding with disasters, helping the homeless and poor, and writing about her life and the Red Cross. She was also an ardent supporter of women’s suffrage. In 1904, she established the National First Aid Association of America, an organization that emphasized emergency preparedness and developed first aid kits. Her Glen Echo, Maryland home became a National Historic Site in 1975, the first dedicated to the achievements of a woman.
The following is excerpted from Representative Women of New England, published in 1904. It was written by Mary H. Graves.
CLARA BARTON, the first President of the American National Red Cross, was born in North Oxford, Mass., December 25, 1821, daughter of Stephen and Sally (Stone) Barton. She was named Clarissa Harlow. Her father, when a young man, fought under General Anthony Wayne in the Indian war in the West, and was afterward a Captain of militia. His parents were Dr. Stephen and Dorothy (Moore) Barton, the former a son of Edmund Barton, of Sutton, a soldier in the French war, and the latter a daughter of Elijah Moore, of Oxford, and his wife, Dorothy Learned. Clara Barton in girlhood pursued her studies under the direction of her older brothers and sisters, she being the youngest of the family of five. She learned something of business methods by serving as book-keeper for her brother Stephen, a manufacturer. Adopting at an early age the profession of teacher, she taught school for several years in North Oxford, and then attended the Clinton Liberal Institute in Central New York, where she studied the higher branches of learning. On leaving the Institute she went with some friends to New Jersey. In that State there were then no public schools worthy the name.
At Bordentown she obtained permission of the local authorities to open a free school. The school began with six boys, others came in, and soon her room was filled. Before long the borough built a school-house costing four thousand dollars, and a little later the free public school of Bordentown, with Miss Barton at its head, had six hundred pupils and eight teachers. On account of failing health she at length resigned her position as teacher and went to Washington to recuperate. A few months later she became a clerk in the Patent Office. This was in 1854. Losing her position when Buchanan was President, she regained it after the election of Lincoln.
Immediately upon hearing of the assault on the Sixth Massachusetts Regiment at Baltimore, she offered her services to the War Department. Through her personal appeals and active effort train-loads of supplies were secured and forwarded to the front for the soldiers in the field.
She visited the hospitals, and went with the Army of the Potomac, ministering on the battle-fields to the wounded. She personally superintended the forwarding of supplies, often riding on wagon trains many days and nights, reaching the scenes of bloodshed in time to minister to the wounded and dying.
Although her sensitive nature shrank from these scenes of war, she continued her humanitarian work in the thickest of the conflict. She was in the siege of Charleston, and was at Fort Wagner, Petersburg, and some of the other most important fields of warfare. Her ability, good judgment, quick perception, and tireless energy were appreciated by surgeons, commanding generals, and the officials at Washington; and every facility possible was placed at her disposal by those in power, for they realized that her services were invaluable.
At the close of the Civil War there were eighty thousand missing men on the muster-rolls of the United States. The work of examining these rolls and locating the burial-places of the fallen who were left on the field was an undertaking that required skill, fortitude, and patience. Miss Barton, however, was equal to the task, and instituted the “Bureau of Missing Men of the Armies of the United States.” This was a great comfort to the anxious friends of martyred thousands, whose records and names were secured and placed on the official rolls at Washington. Through her instrumentality stones were placed over the graves of twelve thousand, nine hundred and twenty soldiers at Andersonville and tablets erected in memory of the four hundred “Unknown.”
Miss Barton continued this work four years, expending fifteen thousand dollars of her own funds, for which she was reimbursed by Congress.
In order to extend the interest in the returned soldiers who had suffered for their country, she often related at public gatherings stories of her experiences on the field and in hospitals.
In 1869 she was advised by her physician to visit Europe and take a much needed rest. She intended leading a quiet life abroad three years, but her fame had preceded her. Arriving in Geneva, Switzerland, in September, 1869, she was visited the following month by the President and members of the “International Committee for the Relief of the Wounded in War,” who desired her co-operation in securing the adoption by the United States of the treaty of the Red Cross.
The idea of forming permanent societies for the relief of wounded soldiers originated with Henri Dunant, a Swiss gentleman who had been deeply impressed by the scenes of suffering following the battle of Solferino in June, 1859. Lecturing in Geneva before the “Society of Public Utility,” he interested M. Gustave Moynier, its president. Dr. Louis Appia, and others. At a meeting of the society held in February, 1863, the subject was discussed, and a committee was formed, with M. Moynier at its head, to take action. In response to a circular issued by the committee some months later, there was held in Geneva in October, 1863, an international conference of thirty-six members, among them being representatives of fourteen governments. The conference lasted four days. Its proceedings were marked by a “general unanimity, as new as it was spontaneous, on a question of humanity, instantaneously developed into one of philanthropic urgency.”
The result was the calling, by the conference, of an international convention, which held its sessions in Geneva in August, 1864. At this convention was adopted a treaty consisting of a code of ten articles, since known as the Geneva Treaty, or the International Red Cross Treaty, the sign or badge agreed upon being a red cross on white ground.
The first government to adopt the treaty was that of France in September, 1864; the eleventh. Great Britain in February, 1865; the thirty-first, Peru in 1880. The formation of national and of local societies of the Red Cross followed in every case the adoption of the treaty.
Miss Barton listened with deepest interest to the account of the Red Cross movement given to her by its leaders in Geneva, and, as she says, was “impressed with the wisdom of its principles and the good practical sense of its details.” During the Franco-Prussian War she saw the excellent work done under the Red Cross banner in the field—saw it and took part in it, and resolved that she would try to make the people of her native country understand the Red Cross and the treaty.
On her return to America in 1873, after her exhausting labors in Strasburg, in Paris, and at Metz, she having previously aided the Duchess of Baden in establishing military hospitals. Miss Barton was more in need of rest than when she went abroad in 1869. A period of invalidism and suffering followed. Late in the year 1877 she was able to go to Washington as the official bearer of a letter from M. Moynier, president of the International Committee of Geneva, to President Hayes, urging the adoption by the United States of the Geneva Treaty. The letter was kindly received, but its appeal met with no response. Writing newspaper articles and publishing pamphlets. Miss Barton continued her advocacy of the cause until the coming in of a new administration in March, 1881. She then lost little time in presenting a copy of M. Moynier’s letter to President Garfield, whose interest and sympathy were expressed a few weeks later in a letter of acknowledgment written to Miss Barton by Secretary Blaine.
Miss Barton now felt that it would be well to anticipate and facilitate the desired action of Congress by beginning to form societies. A meeting that was held in Washington in May, 1881, to further this end, resulted in the formation of “The American Association of the Red Cross,” of which Clara Barton was made president. The first local society of the Red Cross in the United States was formed at Dansville, N.Y., the country home of Miss Barton, in August, 1881. The adhesion of the United States to the Treaty of Geneva was given on March 1, 1882, this nation being the thirty-second to take such action and the first to adopt the proposed amendment of October, 1868, concerning the Red Cross for the navy.
The American Association of the Red Cross, it should be mentioned, was legally incorporated in the District of Columbia. A broader scope was given to its humane work by the adoption by the ratifying congress at Berne of the “‘American amendment,’ whereby the suffering incident to great floods, famines, epidemics, conflagrations, cyclones, or other disasters of national magnitude, may be ameliorated by the administering of necessary relief.”
On April 17, 1893, was incorporated in the District of Columbia, to continue the work of the American Association above named, “The American National Red Cross,” to constitute the Central National Committee of the United States, authorized by the International Committee of Geneva. The American National Red Cross was reincorporated by Congress in 1900. Miss Barton held the office of President till her retirement in the spring of the present year (1904), when she was succeeded by Mrs. John A. Logan.
From the beginning the American Red Cross, so long under the efficient leadership of Clara Barton, has been in active relief work in times of national woe and calamity, finding its duties in such occasions as (to mention but a few) the forest fires of Michigan in 1881; the Ohio and Mississippi floods of 1884; the Johnstown disaster, 1889; the Russian famine, 1891–92; the South Carolina tidal wave, 1893; Armenian massacres, 1896; and later among the “reconcentrados” of Cuba and in field and camp and hospitals during the Spanish-American War. The story of these activities would fill volumes.
Referring to the work in Cuba, the Hon. Redfield Proctor, in a speech in the United States Senate, March 17, 1898, said: “Miss Barton and her work need no endorsement from me. I had known and esteemed her for many years, but had not half appreciated her capability and devotion to her work. I especially looked into her business methods, fearing there would be the greatest danger of mistake, that there might be want of system, waste, and extravagance, but found she could teach me on these points. In short, I saw nothing to criticise, but everything to commend.”
The following extract from the official report of Lieutenant Colonel B. F. Pope, Chief Surgeon, Fifth Army Corps, battles of San Juan, El Caney, Santiago de Cuba, is additional testimony to the invaluable aid rendered by this distinguished woman: “In Major Wood’s hospital over one thousand wounded men were received within three days; and, in spite of lack of shelter and the subsequent exposure to intense heat and drenching rains, the mortality rate was less than seven per cent…. Early after the battle the hospital was honored by the presence of Miss Clara Barton and her staff of four assistants, who immediately set up their tents and cooking apparatus, and labored incessantly, day and night, in the broiling sun and drenching rain, preparing sick food for the wounded and serving it to them, and in a thousand other ways giving the help that the Red Cross Society brings.”
In his message to Congress, December 5, 1898, President McKinley said: “In this connection it is a pleasure for me to mention in terms of cordial appreciation the timely and useful work of the American National Red Cross, both in relief measures preparatory to the campaigns, in sanitary assistance at several of the camps of assemblage, and later, under the able and experienced leadership of the President of the society, Miss Clara Barton, on the fields of battle and in the hospitals at the front in Cuba. Working in conjunction with the governmental authorities and under their sanction and approval and with the enthusiastic co-operation of many patriotic women and societies in the various States, the Red Cross has fully maintained its already high reputation for intense earnestness and ability to exercise the noble purposes of this international organization, thus justifying the confidence and support which it has received at the hands of American people. To the members and officers of this society and all who aided them in philanthropic work the sincere and lasting gratitude of the soldiers and the public is due and is freely accorded.”
It is estimated that the value of relief extended under the direction of Miss Barton as president of the American Red Cross was nearly three million dollars. She represented the United States at several international conferences of the Red Cross in Europe.
Miss Barton is a quiet, unassuming woman in appearance, and never boasts of her achievements. She is dignified in manner, self-possessed, and a tireless worker. Among the numerous decorations she has received in recognition of her meritorious services may be mentioned the Iron Cross of Prussia, a badge of rare distinction, and the Golden Cross of Baden.
In 1883 Miss Barton served as Superintendent of the Reformatory Prison for Women in Sherborn, Mass. While she has had but little time to devote to other work than that of the Red Cross, she is deeply interested in the Grand Army of the Republic and the Woman’s Relief Corps, the only recognized auxiliary to the G. A. R. She is a Past National Chaplain of the National Woman’s Relief Corps and its only honorary member. She is often an honored guest at the annual gatherings of these national organizations, and has a warm place in the hearts of their members.
For several years Miss Barton resided in the mansion in Washington formerly occupied by General Grant as his headquarters. During the past few years she has made her home at Glen Echo, Md.
The following is excerpted from A Woman of the Century, edited by Frances E. Willard and Mary A Livermore, published in 1893 by Charles Wells Moulton.
BARTON, Miss Clara, philanthropist, was born in North Oxford, Worcester county, Mass., about 1830. Her father was a soldier with General Anthony Wayne. She received a good education in the public schools of her native town. When she was sixteen years old, she became a teacher. After teaching for some years she took a course of study in Clinton, N. V., and then went to Trenton, N. J., where she engaged in teaching. She taught for a time in Bordentown, N. J., and in that place she established a free school, which, in spite of all opposition, grew to large proportions. Overwork there in 1853 caused her health to fail, and she went to Washington, D. C, to visit relatives and rest. There was at that time much confusion in the Patent Office, growing out of the treachery of clerks, who had lietraved secrets of inventors applying for patents, and Miss Barton was recommended to the Commissioner of Patents as a person qualified to take charge of affairs. She was employed, and the male clerks tried to make her position uncomfortable, employing direct personal insult at first, and slander at last. Instead of driving her out of the Patent Office, her abusers themselves were discharged. She remained in the Patent Office three years, doing much to bring order out of chaos. Under the Buchanan administration she was removed on account of her ” Black Republicanism,” but she was recalled by the same administration. When the Civil War broke out, she offered to serve in her department without pay, and resigned her position to find some other way in which to serve her country. She was among the spectators at the railroad station in Washington when the Massachusetts regiment arrived there from Baltimore, where the first blood had been shed. She nursed the forty wounded men who were the victims of the Baltimore mob. On that day she identified herself with army work, and she shared the risks and sufferings of the soldiers of the Union army to the close of the great struggle. Visits to the battle-fields revealed to her the great need of provision for the nursing and feeding of the wounded soldiers. She made an attempt to organize the work of relief, but women held back, and Miss Barton herself was not allowed at first to go to the battle-fields. She gathered stores of food and supplies, and finally she prevailed upon Assistant Quartermaster-Genera] Rucker to furnish transportation facilities, and she secured permission to go wherever there was a call for her services. She at once went to the front, and her amazing work under the most distressful conditions, her unwearying devotion, and her countless services to the Soldiers earned for her the name of “Angel of the Battlefield” During the last year of the war she was called to Massachusetts by family bereavements, and while there she was appointed by President Lincoln to attend to the correspondence of the relatives of missing prisoners after the exchanges. She went to Annapolis, Md., at once, to begin the work. Inquiries by the thousand poured in, and she established a Bureau of Records of missing men of the Union army, employing several assistants. Her records are now of great value, as they were compiled from prison and hospital rolls and burial lists. At Andersonville she was able to identify all but four-hundred of the thirteen-thousand graves of buried soldiers. In her work she used her own money freely, and Congress voted to reimburse her, but she refused to take money as pay for her services. She managed the bureau for four years, and her connection with the great conflict has given her a permanent and conspicuous place in the history of the country. In 1869 she went to Europe to rest and recover her wasted energies. In Geneva she was visited by the leading members of the International Committee of Relief of Geneva for the care of the wounded in war, who presented to her the treaty, signed by all the civilized nations excepting the United States, under which all who wore the badge of their society were allowed to go on the battlefields to care for the wounded. Miss Burton had not heard of the society, although its principles were familiar to her from her service in connection with the Sanitary Commission. The society was the Society of the Red Cross. Miss Barton was at once interested in it and began to advocate its extension to cover the United States. In 1870. while she was in Heme, the war between France and Prussia broke out. Within three days Miss Barton was asked, by Dr. Appia, one of the founders of the Red Cross Society to go to the front and assist in caring for the wounded. Although herself an invalid, she went with her French companion, the “fair-haired Antoinette.” and the two women were admitted within the lines of the German army. They there served after the battle of Hagenau, and Miss Barton realized the enormous value and importance of the Red Cross work, in having supplies of all sorts ready and trained help to do everything required to save life and relieve suffering. Returning to Berne. Miss Barton was called to the Court in Carlsruhe by the Grand Duchess of Baden, who wished her to remain with her and give suggestions concerning relief measures. She remained in Carlsruhe until the siege of Strasburg, and. when the gates of that city at last opened to the German army. Miss Barton entered with the soldiers. For her services she received a Red Cross brooch from the Grand Duchess of Baden, the Gold Cross of Remembrance with the colors of the Grand Duchy of Baden from the Grand Duke and his wife, and the Iron Cross of Merit with the colors of Germany and the Red Cross from the Emperor and Empress of Germany. Everywhere in the ruined cities Miss Barton did most valuable work. In Paris, in the closing days of the Commune, she did much work. Monsieur Thiers himself honored her in signal ways, and she was debarred from receiving the cross of the Legion of Donor only by her refusal to solicit it, as, according to the laws governing its bestowal, it must be solicited by the would-be recipient. In 1873, utterly broken in health, she returned to the United States, and for several years she was unable to do any work. As soon as she was able to do so, she began to urge the Washington government to accept the Geneva treaty for the Red Cross Society. President Garfield was to have signed the treaty, but his untimely death prevented, and it was signed by President Arthur in 1882. In 1877 an “American National Committee of the Red Cross” was formed in Washington, and it was afterwards incorporated as “The American Association of the Red Cross.” Miss Barton was appointed to the presidency by President Garfield, and she has since devoted herself to carrying out its benevolences. In the United States Miss Barton’s society has done noble work among the fire sufferers in Michigan, and flood sutlerers in Louisiana, Mississippi and Johnstown, Pa. During 1891 and 1892 the society worked for the famine sufferers in Russia, the American branch having made large collections of food and money for that purpose. In 1883 Miss Barton was appointed superintendent of the Reformatory Prison for Women in Sherburne, Mass., and she divided her time between that work and the work of the Red Cross. She has made that beneficent organization known throughout the United States by its services in times of Buttering from fire, flood, drouth, tempest and pestilence. Miss Barton is spending her years in Washington, D. C., where, as a central sun, she diffuses energy, radiance and vitality throughout her world of philanthropy and of noble endeavor. Her long years of arduous labor have left their marks upon her, but she is still in the ranks, doing good service in the present and planning greater for the future.
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Works cited by NWHM
“Clara Barton.” Encyclopedia of World Biography. Detroit: Gale, 1998. U.S. History in Context. Accessed January 31, 2015. http://ic.galegroup.com/ic/uhic/ReferenceDetailsPage/ReferenceDetailsWindow?failOverType=&query=&prodId=UHIC&windowstate=normal&contentModules=&display-query=&mode=view&displayGroupName=Reference&limiter=&currPage=&disableHighlighting=false&displayGroups=&sortBy=&search_within_results=&p=UHIC%3AWHIC&action=e&catId=&activityType=&scanId=&documentId=GALE%7CK1631000476&source=Bookmark&u=ereader_his_gale&jsid=f02cc5085a03540d9de5ac1d3718366e
“Clara Barton Historic Site,” National Park Service, 30 April 1998, www.nps.gov/clba/house.htm (7 February 2006).
“Clara Barton: Relief Organizer/Humanitarian.” American Civil War Trust. Accessed January 31, 2015. http://www.civilwar.org/education/history/biographies/clara-barton.html
Curti, Merle. “Clara Barton” in James, Edward T., Janet Wilson James, Paul S. Boyer, eds. Notable American Women: 1607-1950, A Biographical Dictionary. Cambridge: Belknap Press, 1971.
“Founder Clara Barton.” American Red Cross. Accessed January 31, 2015. http://www.redcross.org/about-us/history/clara-barton
Richardson, Sarah, and Linda Wheeler. “Clara Barton’s missing soldiers office unveiled.” Civil War Times51.4 (2012): 14. U.S. History in Context. Accessed January 31, 2015. http://ic.galegroup.com/ic/uhic/AcademicJournalsDetailsPage/AcademicJournalsDetailsWindow?failOverType=&query=&prodId=UHIC&windowstate=normal&contentModules=&display-query=&mode=view&displayGroupName=Journals&limiter=&currPage=&disableHighlighting=false&displayGroups=&sortBy=&search_within_results=&p=UHIC%3AWHIC&action=e&catId=&activityType=&scanId=&documentId=GALE%7CA295446220&source=Bookmark&u=ereader_his_gale&jsid=054733560a143dcd1fdefa5a3c99a91b
Weatherford, Doris. American Women’s History: An A to Z of People, Organizations, Issues, and Events. New York: Macmillan General Reference, 1994.