Clarissa Harlowe Barton, Clara, as she wished to be called, is one of the most honoured women in American history. She began teaching school at a time when most teachers were men and she was among the first women to gain employment in the federal government. Barton risked her life to bring supplies and support to soldiers in the field Red Cross in 1881 and led it for the next 23 years. Her understanding of the needs of people in distress and the ways in which she could provide help to them guided her throughout her life. By the force of her personal example, she opened paths to the new field of volunteer service. Her intense devotion to serving others resulted in enough achievements to fill several ordinary lifetimes.

She began her illustrious career as an educator but found her true calling tending wounded soldiers on and off bloody Civil War battlefields. When the war ended, Barton worked to identify missing and deceased soldiers, and eventually founded the American Red Cross. Her life was dedicated to the care of others, and Barton had a crucial and long-lasting impact on caregiving and disaster relief in America and throughout the world.

In 1869, Barton travelled to Europe for rest and learned about the International Red Cross in Geneva, Switzerland, which had established an international agreement known as the Geneva Treaty (now part of the Geneva Convention), which laid out rules for the care of the sick and wounded in wartime.

When the Franco-Prussian War broke out in 1870, Barton – never one to sit on the side-lines – wore a red cross made of red ribbon and helped deliver supplies to needy war-zone citizens.

After Barton returned to the United States, she solicited political support for America to enter the Geneva Treaty. President Chester A. Arthur finally signed the treaty in 1882 and the American Association of the Red Cross (later called the American Red Cross) was born, with Barton at its helm.

As head of the American Red Cross, Barton focused mainly on disaster relief, including helping victims of the deadly Johnstown Flood in Pennsylvania, and devastating hurricanes and tidal waves in South Carolina and Galveston, Texas. She also sent relief supplies overseas to victims of war and famine.

Barton played an integral role in the passing of the “American Amendment” to the Geneva Treaty in 1884 which expanded the role of the International Red Cross to include assisting victims of natural disasters.

But everything wasn’t rosy in Barton’s Red Cross. She was reportedly an independent workaholic who fiercely protected her vision of what the Red Cross should be. She also suffered from depression, although nothing rallied her more than an urgent call for help. Her authoritarian leadership approach and supposed mismanagement of funds eventually forced her to resign her post in 1904.

In 1905, Barton established the National First Aid Association of America which made first aid kits and worked closely with local fire and police departments to create ambulance brigades.

Clara Barton’s Legacy

Barton served on sixteen battlefields during the Civil War. Whether working tirelessly behind the scenes to procure supplies, prepare meals and arrange makeshift hospitals or tending the wounded during some of the goriest battles in American history, she earned the respect of countless soldiers, officers, surgeons and politicians. She almost singlehandedly changed the widely-held viewpoint that women were too weak to help on battlefields.

The American Red Cross wouldn’t exist as it is today without Barton’s influence. She believed in equal rights and helped everyone regardless of race, gender or economic station. She brought attention to the great need of disaster victims and streamlined many first aid, emergency preparedness and emergency response procedures still used by the American Red Cross.

Clara Barton died on April 12, 1912, at her home in Glen Echo, Maryland at age 91. A monument in her honour stands at Antietam National Battlefield.