Clara Barton: American Red Cross

Introduction: Clara Barton was born December 25, 1821 in Oxford, Massachusetts. She attended Clinton Liberal Institute and became familiar with abolition, women’s rights and education. (Whitelaw, 5) Her father, Captain Steven Barton, a veteran of the Indian Wars, was a great influence on her. Not only did he teach Clara military tactics, geography, and how to properly equip an army, as a woman he told her that she could do anything she desired. (Whitelaw, 6) She refused to be treated as less than a man would be, “I may sometimes be willing to teach for nothing, but if paid at all, I shall never do a man’s work for less than a man’s pay”. (LaFantasie, paragraph 6) Everything her father told her and everything she believed made her more determined …show more content…
Clara Barton was not only able to create equal opportunity for men and women but she also founded the American Red Cross. After Barton was done nursing in the Civil War in 1866 she was able to receive a grant for thirty thousand dollars that she used to continue her work and found the American Red Cross. (Whitelaw, 58) Before she started the American Red Cross, in 1867 she started doing lecture tours for women's rights and she met two women's rights champions; Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony. Meeting these two women inspired her to do something with the grant she was given and she eventually created the American Red Cross. (Whitelaw, 60)
Clara Barton was then invited to Geneva, Switzerland because of her work in the Civil War and she worked with two men that were members of the red cross and she served again when France declared war on Prussia. (Whitelaw, 62-63) While doing work in Geneva she was able to find thousands of homeless refugees and she organized places for them to stay and found ways for them to receive food and shelter. (Whitelaw, 63) After working for the Red Cross in Geneva she went back to the United States to eventually organize the American Red …show more content…
(Tim Lowry 20:00) Although she was known as an angel, when people think about an angel it is the complete opposite of how Clara Barton was in the battlefield. An angel is depicted as wearing all white, being very clean and pure and looking over people but not being physically involved in a person's life. While Clara Barton was able to protect and save people she was not the ideal image of an angel; she wasn’t just looking over people she was out in the battlefield caring for and helping wounded soldiers. She also was not wearing pure white and did not have a clean and neat outfit on, but she was bloody and did not care about herself because she was too busy nursing in the war. Clara Barton changed nursing for all women and she changed women's rights, she said “I broke the shackles” and she would no longer accept that she was “just a women”. (Whitelaw, 10) Without the help of Clara Barton women’s rights and ability to enlist in the army might not