The Extraordinary Life of Clarissa Harlowe Barton (Article PDF)
Name of Authors:D. Medina
Saily Ramos
Thalia Tarajano Castro
Laura Letona
Gabriel Cordero Morales
Ernesto Tomas Rodriquez Izquierdo
Department of Mathematics, Miami Regional University
Developmental Math
Dr. Yoan Valdes-Vigil
October 6th 2023
Clarissa Harlowe Barton, also known as Clara Barton, was quite an extraordinary woman. She accomplished many things in her life and remains one of the most renowned women in American history. It is pretty difficult to highlight all the things that made her so extraordinary and so the best way to tell her story is to start from the beginning when her life began.
Clara Barton was born on December 25, 1821, in North Oxford, Massachusetts. She was the youngest of her parent’s children. Her four older siblings were mostly 10 years older than Clara so they played more of a parental role in her life vs. typical siblings that you grow up with playing and creating fun memories with. It was apparent that her love for humanity came to light thanks to the many war stories she loved hearing her father tell and an accident her brother had when she was very young. Her brother, David, fell off a barn roof. This accident caused him to be bedridden for about 2 years. It was Clara who stayed with him during this time to care for him and help him recuperate.
During her early years, she was extremely shy. Although she was shy, she managed to do very well in school. Now, please recall during this day in age, women were not allowed to excel in any career that was meant to be a man’s job. Women were known to be nurturing and appropriate jobs for them were ones like teaching. At the age of 17, Clara became a teacher. She was an amazing teacher. Her love and compassion for helping children were very well recognized by people in her community. Oddly, she did not beat children to discipline them, as this was a normal form of discipline in those days for school children. She believed that if a child was cared for at home and disciplined accordingly, she would be able to avoid beating them per se and teach them to be great students. It has been noted that she said, “Child that I was, I did not know the surest test of discipline is its absence.”
After a few years of teaching, Clara decided to attend school for a year in New York. After that year, she went off to New Jersey. There she realized that unlike Massachusetts, New Jersey had no public school. She ventured off to open her own school. Upon opening the school she had very few students attending, but by the end of the school year, she had 200 students. The community was so impressed with her form of teaching and the ability with which the children were learning that the community decided to build her a school. However, unbeknownst to Clara, who founded this school, a man was appointed principal of the school, and was offered double the amount of what she was earning and when she became aware of this, she quit. She said, “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.”
Saddened and most probably upset, Clara threw the towel and simply stopped teaching. She was not one to sit still and wait for another opportunity. Immediately thereafter, Clara was off to Washington, DC. There she was able to get herself a job at the United States Patent Office. She had an amazing boss who treated her equally, or better yet, treated her with equal pay to that of a man in the same position as hers. That did not last long, when he was no longer her boss, she was demoted earning less than her male peers and again, she quit. She decided to go home and do odd jobs for friends and family. She hated her life doing those odd jobs. She returned to DC when Abraham Lincoln became president. This was truly the turning point for Clara.
It was the 1860s and the Civil War began. A riot broke in her town and she came to learn that there were 24 wounded. The wounded were former classmates, students, and friends. In her typical Clara self, she went on autopilot. As she waited at the train station, she began organizing and planning ways to get these wounded people the help they needed. Before she knew it, more and more wounded soldiers were arriving. The one thing that appeared apparent to Clara, was there were no supplies to help, treat and/or care for any of the soldiers. She began her quest to collect supplies from all her neighboring friends and families. Her incredible efforts managed to fill 3 warehouses full of supplies for the needy.
In the days and months to come, this became Clara’s quest. She managed to continue collecting supplies for soldiers. Clara required special permission to go to field hospitals. After all, troops were men and they treated women horribly, especially on war sites. However, she managed to travel from field to field, delivering supplies. So much so, that she made herself sick. She was so concerned with helping everyone, that she failed to take care of herself. She put others' needs before hers. This caused her to collapse a few times and become ill.
The Civil War came to an end. However, Clara was so satisfied with the work that she did, that she then turned to her mission to find missing soldiers to bring closure to many, many families. This mission came to be known as the Missing Soldiers Office. Families would send in requests for help to find their loved ones and she made it her mission to find them. Of the 63,000 requests she received, Clara was able to locate 22,000 of them.
In 1868, poor Clara was beyond exhausted from all the work she had been doing for almost a decade (possibly more). From the advice of her doctor, she left for Europe to rest. Upon researching, this seemed a bit out of character for Clara. She had not really rested since her teaching days. Lo and behold, war was breaking out in Europe. While in Europe not only didshe NOT rest, but she met with the International Red Cross representatives which encouraged her to open the American Red Cross in the United States. She was eager to do so because of course, it meant helping people, however, she did not leave Europe without providing her assistance to those who needed her during the war.
Clara made her voyage back to the United States and became the founder of the American Red Cross in 1881. The American Red Cross is one of the largest organizations on a global level that provides aid to those in crisis. Additionally, she became the voice of incorporating the Geneva Convention in the United States. The Geneva Convention was basically a humanitarian law with regard to the way war victims were treated. It was something learned in Europe and knew it would benefit the soldiers in the United States. She was president of the American Red Cross until 1904.
Clara’s legacy still lives on today. She was a humanitarian of her time and yet, still to this day, her work continues. She was the epitome of care. Clara laid the foundation of what, where, and when care should be provided to people. She held a passion in her heart and fire in her soul to help anyone in need, whether it was the children she taught, her bedridden brother, or wounded soldiers on a battlefield. She was unstoppable and it was her determination that made her so successful in caring for people. Finally, when she resigned from the American Red Cross at the age of 82, she started the National First Aid Association of America. She was finally laid to rest at the age of 90.
Clarissa Harlowe Barton was born on Christmas Day (December 25th) 1821 in Massachusetts. The youngest child, with four much older siblings, Clara did not have an easy childhood. She was shy and tiring . Her mother was not kind to her. Her siblings were more parents than playmates. However, Clara’s childhood wasn’t all bad. Young Clara was home educated and extremely bright.
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.
During the war, Clara Barton was 40 years old at the time and did not hesitate to get involved in the war to help the war wounded. His activity began traveling in army ambulances but soon he asked to enter the battlefield, where the most serious victims were found.
She is considered the founder of the American Red Cross, to provide help at all times and not only in case of war. She fought tirelessly for the government to sign the Treaty of Geneva, which guarantees the care of the sick and wounded, as well as the burial of the dead in the event of belligerence
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