Clara Barton Character Traits

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“Clara Barton”

Coming up on May 21, it will mark the 136th year since Clara Barton started the American Red Cross (Benson 66). Besides bringing a little-known organization to America and making it thrive here to help people, she did many other things. Clara Barton had a full and rewarding life, as a child she learned skills that helped all throughout her life, did her part to contribute in the Civil War, started a school, and fought for women’s rights, as well as brought the Red Cross Back to America.

The variety of skills and experiences Clara Barton learned as a child greatly influenced and helped her as an adult. For example, she was exposed to nursing at a young age. At age 11, her older brother David fell while working on a barn.
Barton's contributions to helping the troops at the beginning of the Civil War started small. She began by bringing homemade treats to the field and soon became associated with doing good things for the troops. Barton started to receive donations shipped to her house for distribution ("Clara Barton"). Additionally, she started helping on the battlefield. Up until this point women hadn't been allowed on the battlefield. Barton begged for a pass to go to the front lines and eventually was granted one. The first battle she attended was at Cedar Mountain, "Where she appeared like mirage with a four-mule team pulling a wagon of supplies." ("Clara Barton"). Barton fed, cooked for and bandaged the wounded while bullets ripped through the air around her ("Clara Barton"). She pushed to do what she could to help. Even after the war was finished she continued to lend a hand. President Abraham Lincoln gave Barton his approval to develop a way to identify soldiers killed in battle. She got started right away and overcame the extraordinary task. The war also fueled her feminist ideas, she once said, "Soldiers! I have worked for you – and I ask of you, now, one and all, that you consider the wants of my people... God only knows women were your friends in time of peril - and you should be hers now." ("Clara Barton"). Barton worked on the women's movement for more than forty years ("Clara Barton"). She helped
For instance, she fought for women's rights. She opened the first free public school in New Jersey, the town soon decided to hire a male principal to replace her for three times her pay. Barton quit saying, “I may sometimes be willing to teach for nothing, but if payed at all, shall never to a man’s work for less than a man’s pay.” She later moved back to Washington D.C. and became the first female federal employee to work for equal pay (Ridgley). Clara saw the injustice in the system and wanted to change it. However, Barton was very dedicated to her organization. Clara Barton ran the American Red Cross out of her house for seven years of her 23-year presidency. She handled disaster relief operations for the Spanish-American War; the Galveston, Texas Hurricane; and a typhoid fever outbreak in Pennsylvania (Ridgley). This shows she cared deeply about helping people. Lastly, we have her to thank for the disaster relief we have. In modern day we still see the Red Cross relieving disasters and helping with other situations. The Red Cross provided international aid for the victims of the earthquakes in Japan and Haiti, including the tsunami (Ridgley). Without her contributions the world would be very different for the

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