10 Lessons from Clara Barton’s Life for Living and Making an Impact

Oil painting of Clara Barton by Mathilde Leisenring, 1937.

Clara Barton lived an amazing life with extraordinary accomplishments, as a group of us recently learned on a tour retracing her steps (this will be the final post in the series). But it was an unlikely, even improbable, journey. She was painfully shy, suffered from anxiety and depression, and had to endure discrimination due to her gender, marital status, and age.

Out of these challenges, she became a teacher and started the first public school in New Jersey; was among the first women appointed to government work, serving in the U.S. Patent Office; served as a Civil War nurse; opened an Office for Missing Soldiers after the war; and remained an avid suffragette and abolitionist throughout her life.

She then started the American Red Cross at the age of 59 and convinced the International Red Cross to expand their services to disaster […]

2024-06-12T15:40:21-04:00June 12th, 2024|Clara Barton Tour 2024, Nursing, nursing history, Public health, volunteering|0 Comments
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Clara Barton and the Missing Soldiers Office: Meeting a Desperate Need for Information

“I was fascinated to learn the site was discovered in 1996, saved by a government worker who was preparing the site for demolition when he discovered historical documents in the attic!”

Recognizing a need for information and meeting it.

Photo credit: Cynthia Leaver

In the course of our tour following the footsteps of Clara Barton, my admiration for her courage, confidence, and strength in character—yes, fortitude is the word that comes to mind—continues to grow. A trip to the Missing Soldiers Office Museum in Washington, D.C., has only added further confirmation of Barton’s character.

Early in 1865, as the American Civil War drew to a close, over 3 million men had fought, half a million died, with almost as many wounded. From a small boarding house on 7th Street in  Washington, D.C., Clara Barton had been responding to those in need. In the course of her visits to military camps and hospitals to provide nursing care and other types of material support for the wounded, she had noticed bags of unread letters, many of them asking for any bit of information on the injury or death […]

2024-06-11T15:32:11-04:00June 11th, 2024|Clara Barton Tour 2024, Nursing|0 Comments
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‘Follow the Cannons!’: Clara Barton’s Pioneering Battlefield Nursing at Antietam

Antietam battlefield, seen from the observation tower. Photo credit: Lewis Sandy.

As it happens, this summer’s #1 best-selling book is Kristin Hannah’s The Women, which tells the story of Frankie, a young idealist nurse who volunteers to serve in Vietnam. This harrowing tale takes her fresh out of Army basic training to the Thirty Sixth Evac Hospital, where she and her fellow nurses triage the wounded, provide care for the dying, and stabilize soldiers for further treatment at other hospitals, while coming under attack.

Women at the front? The concept of battlefield triage? The idea of a “field hospital”?

All come from the Civil War, where Clara Barton became known as “the angel of the battlefield.”

Today our tour exploring the career and legacy of American Red Cross founder Clara Barton visited the Pry House Field Hospital Museum, the Antietam battlefields, and the National Museum of Civil War Medicine. As a physician, I can only marvel at the advances medicine and nursing have made since then—and note (with mixed feelings) that war often brings on […]

2024-06-07T11:31:53-04:00June 7th, 2024|Clara Barton Tour 2024, Nursing, nursing history|0 Comments
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At Clara Barton’s Home in Glen Echo, Inspiration for a New Nurse Graduate

“You have never known me without work; while able, you never will.” – Clara Barton

Yesterday on day three of our ongoing Clara Barton tour we visited Barton’s home in Glen Echo, Maryland. As a brand new nursing graduate and history lover, learning about the dedication of the courageous woman who paved the way for me and millions of others is a humbling experience.

Barton’s fame as a selling point for a new town.

Clara Barton lived and worked in Glen Echo, located a little over seven miles from Washington, D.C., and overlooking the Potomac River, until her death in 1912.

Barton was an early resident of the town, which was established in 1889 by two brothers, Edwin and Edward Baltzley. The American Red Cross was an operating organization by this point and Clara’s work was well-known throughout the world. The Baltzley brothers hoped that her fame and affiliation with the American Red Cross would bring attention to their town, including from investors for its development, and they gave Clara land and a home at no cost. She moved in when she was 75 years old.

The home, built in 1891, also served as a warehouse for the American Red Cross an […]

2024-06-06T12:58:27-04:00June 6th, 2024|Clara Barton Tour 2024, Nursing|1 Comment
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At Red Cross National Headquarters, a Vision of Past and Present Priorities

The author speaking to the Clara Barton tour group before the Tiffany stained glass windows at national Red Cross headquarters.

“Because of the climate crisis, the Red Cross launches nearly twice as many relief operations for major disasters than it did a decade ago.”

Today a group of us tracing the career and legacy of Clara Barton arrived at the ornate national Red Cross headquarters in Washington, D.C., a building I have been at countless times over my last 48 years of volunteering. Every time I enter, it reminds me of the people who have worked so hard to help millions of people have better lives—whether through disaster or war recovery, aid for military families, or donating the gift of blood.

Built as a memorial to the women of the Civil War with U.S. and private funds, the headquarters features exquisite architecture. The building’s showpiece—the Tiffany stained glass windows—are designed to “symbolize reconciliation following the Civil War and are reputed to be the largest suite of Tiffany windows created for a secular environment.”

A Brief History

We learned how the Red Cross initially focused on domestic and overseas disaster relief efforts, assisted the […]

2024-06-05T10:44:05-04:00June 5th, 2024|Clara Barton Tour 2024, climate change, Nursing, nursing history, Public health|0 Comments
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