Clara Barton
Clara Barton was born on December 25th 1821 in Massachussetts and is most widely known for founding the American Red Cross and supporting Union soldiers in the field during the American Civil War. Clara learned the arts of nursing at a young age when assigned the task of nursing her brother after he fell and received a severe injury.
At the age of 17 Clara Barton began teaching and was a teacher for many years in Canada and West Georgia before furthering her education by pursuing writing and language studies at the Clinton Liberal Institute in New York and opening up her own free school in New Jersey, the first free school to be opened in the state.
After moving to Washington D.C. Barton began working as a clerk in the US Patent Office becoming the first woman to receive a government job and have a salary equal to a man’s. However her position was soon reduced to a copyist and then eliminated entirely.
Civil War
After a riot broke out near her Patent Office, Barton left immediately to tend the wounded and soon after wrote to her friends urging them to help as well, building a volunteer supply network that would change the medical face of the Civil War.
With the death of her father, Barton was convinced that it was her duty as a Christian to help the soldiers and began taking supplies to the men of the Sixth Massachussetts Infantry. Like a few other women, Barton provided clothing and assorted foods and supplies to the sick or wounded. Most supplies were purchased by donations solicited by Barton herself or by her own funds.
During the war, twice as many men died from disease and wound infection as died from a bullet in the battlefield; this was due to unsanitary and crowded conditions at the campsites. Clara cared ...
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...rotect herself she fashioned a cross out of the red ribbon she was wearing.
After her return to America, Barton pushed for movement to gain recognition for the International Committee of the Red Cross by the United States government. Initially President Rutherford B. Hayes expressed what most of America believed, that they would never face a problem like the Civil War again. But Barton persisted and finally succeeded using the argument that the new American Red Cross could respond to crises other than war such as earthquakes, forest fires and hurricanes.
In 1880 the American Red Cross was established, Barton served as the organisations first president until 1904 but still continuing as a volunteer in Cuba during the Spanish-American War. The American Red Cross, with Barton at its head, was largely devoted to disaster relief for the first 20 years of its existence.
In document “A” which is from various says at Valley Forge in December 23, 1777 2,898 soldiers were counted ill. Later at Valley Forge in February 1, 1778 3,989 soldiers were counted ill. Also from various sources between December and June 1,800 to 2,500 soldiers died due to illnesses. Imagine you being one of those ill soldiers in cold and snowy Philadelphia.
Born on December 25, 1921, Clara grew up in a family of four children, all at least 11 years older than her (Pryor, 3). Clara’s childhood was more of one that had several babysitters than siblings, each taking part of her education. Clara excelled at the academic part of life, but was very timid among strangers. School was not a particularly happy point in her life, being unable to fit in with her rambunctious classmates after having such a quiet childhood. The idea of being a burden to the family was in Clara’s head and felt that the way to win the affection of her family was to do extremely well in her classes to find the love that she felt was needed to be earned. She was extremely proud of the positive attention that her achievement of an academic scholarship (Pryor, 12). This praise for her accomplishment in the field of academics enriched her “taste for masculine accomplishments”. Her mother however, began to take notice of this and began to teach her to “be more feminine” by cooking dinners and building fires (Pryor, 15). The 1830’s was a time when the women of the United States really began to take a stand for the rights that they deserved (Duiker, 552). Growing up in the mist of this most likely helped Barton become the woman she turned out to be.
From childhood to death Clara Barton dedicated her life to helping others. She is most notably remembered for her work as a nurse on the battlefield during the Civil War and for the creation of the American Red Cross. Barton was also an advocate for human rights. Equal rights for all men, women, black and white. She worked on the American equal Rights Association and formed relations with civil rights leaders such as Anna Dickensen and Fredric Douglass. Her undeterred determination and selflessness is undoughtably what made her one of the most noteworthy nurses in American history.
Clara Barton was born during 1821 in Massachusetts. As a young child, Barton learned a great deal of schooling from her older siblings; she learned a wide variety of different subjects. She seized every educational opportunity that she was given and she worked hard to receive a well rounded-education. Clara Barton would later use her education to create her own school and eventually help start an organization that is still used today. As a young child, Clara was extremely shy; nevertheless, after many years she was able to overcome this. Even as a young child Clara thrived helping others. She tended to her sick brother who was severely injured by a roofing accident on a regular basis. The skills she learned from helping her brother proved to be used again when she was on the front-line of the Civil War helping wounded soldiers.
Most people in the beginning of the war; thought it was only going to last a few weeks or months, so not much effort was put into recruiting doctors or surgeons. Even so, surgeons really didn’t have formal training in medicine. They did not know much about bacteriology and were ignorant of what caused diseases. Most Civil War surgeons also had never treated a gun shot wound or performed surgery, which led to the fact that they were not qualified at all. They would usually have 2 years of schooling, with only bookwork in the first year, and the second year would usually just be a repeat. However, doctors tried the best they could at treating the wounded and injured, and knowledge of medicine improved a little bit more each year.
One of the major diseases that almost permanently affected the soldiers was Shell Shock which was due to constant exposure to horrific scenes of death. Source A1 is an extract from a historian writing for the First World war aimed at students, focuses on ...
“A hero is someone who has given his or her life to something bigger than oneself” (Joseph Campbell). Clara Barton could be regarded as a hero because she went into several military battles during the civil war with a strong mindset to help the soldiers who were wounded and to provide supplies that were needed but scarce17.She was a woman of many talents who accomplished a lot but became best known for the founding of the Red Cross in America. Her humanitarian contributions and compassionate personality allowed her to connect with many people. As inspiring as Clara Barton was, she wasn’t born a hero but became one with the influence of her younger years. Clara Barton’s family life and personal struggles when she was younger, ultimately shaped
Vermilya, Daniel. "Clara Barton in the Civil War: Facts, Timeline & History." Education-Portal.com. N.p., n.d. Web. 18 Mar. 2014.
Subsequently, women volunteered through national or local associations or by getting permission from a commanding officer (“Nursing”). In April 1861, Dorothea Dix assembled a collection of volunteer female nurses which staged a march on Washington, demanding that the government distinguish their desire to assist the Union’s wounded soldiers. She organized military hospitals for the care of all sick and wounded soldiers, aiding the head surgeons by supplying nurses and considerable means for the ease and aid of the suffering. After she recruited nurses; nursing was greatly improved and her nurses were taken care of under her supervision (Buhler-Wilkerson). During the Civil war, most nurses were women who took care of the ill and injured soldiers. Both male and female nurses have cared for the soldiers in every American war. The majority of nurses were recruited soldiers pressed into duty. Civil war nurses worked in hospitals, on the battlefield, and in their homes (Post). The first carnage of the war made it possible for nursing to become a professional occupation. The women who proved themselves as capable volunteers established nursing as an acceptable field of employment for women after the war. The contributions of the thousands of female nurses helped to alter the image of the professional nurse and changed American nursing from a male-dominated to a largely female profession (Woodworth). Clara Barton, one of the nurses who contributed to the Civil War, founded the American Red Cross, brought supplies and helped the battlefronts before formal relief organizations could take shape to administer such shipments (Buhler-Wilkerson). The religious orders given responded to the new opportunity for servicing the injured by sending t...
She helped with getting the supplies the army needed by receiving donations and giving away her own money. Barton tended to the wounded soldiers out of a tent, and she handed out fresh foods to prevent further sicknesses. She soon became the founder of the American Red Cross. Dorothea Dix was another woman who took part as a nurse during the Civil War. Being dismissed on her request to help out in the U.S Army, Dix decided to rent out a home in Washington as a place for receiving hospital supplies.
Here at the Chelsea Naval Hospital, the influx of patients arriving home from the war inflicted with "battle wounds and mustard gas burns," has created a shortage of physicians and it is becoming increasingly difficult to fight this influenza. Even our own physicians are falling ill from the disease and dying within hours of its onset. Today I received a letter from Dr. Roy, a friend and fellow physician at Camp Devens, who describes a similar situation:
One of the worst things about war is the severity of carnage that it bestows upon mankind. Men are killed by the millions in the worst ways imaginable. Bodies are blown apart, limbs are cracked and torn and flesh is melted away from the bone. Dying eyes watch as internal organs are spilled of empty cavities, naked torso are hung in trees and men are forced to run on stumps when their feet are blown off. Along with the horrific deaths that accompany war, the injuries often outnumber dead men. As Paul Baumer witnessed in the hospital, the injuries were terrifying and often led to death. His turmoil is expressed in the lines, “Day after day goes by with pain and fear, groans and death gurgles. Even the death room I no use anymore; it is too small.” The men who make it through the war take with them mental and physical scarification from their experiences.
In the early years of the Civil War, it became clear that disease would be the greatest killer. Twice as many Civil War soldiers died of disease than those killed in combat. This was due to unsanitary and filthy conditions, untrained medical personnel and poor medical examination of new soldier’s. One fact from the Civil War was 315,000 soldiers died from illnesses that included: 44,558 from diarrhea/dysentery, 10,063 from malaria, 34,833 from typhoid, 958 from typhus and 436 from yellow fever. The sanitary conditions that a cured during the civil war were shocking.
It is important to know how the Red Cross began. It was in June 1859 when Henry Dunant went to Solferino, north of Italy. He was a spectator of a small but bloody war. French and Italians had a battle against Austrians. There were more or less 40,000 victims. He was completely horrified with the scene. He interrupted his trip to help the hurt and organized volunteers to save lives.
Barton, William E. The Life of Clara Barton Founder of the American Red Cross. Vol. 1. New York: AMS Press, 1969.