Clara Barton was an American nurse and humanitarian who was best known for her contributions during the Civil War and the formation of the American Red Cross. She was truly a badass, for a woman in this time period to be this courageous and defy odds.
She was born on Christmas Day 1821, in Oxford Massachusetts. In 1850 she went to Clinton Liberal institute to receive a higher education in women’s rights, education and abolitionism. She first showed her talent for organizing charities when she established the first free public school in Bordentown, New Jersey but was eventually pushed aside by the school board. When the Civil war erupted she learned that soldiers from her home town state were quartered in the U.S Senate chambers without any beds or supplies, she brought them items from her home that were needed. While serving on the front lines of the Civil War as a nurse she discovered that ambulances, medical supplies and hospital construction weren’t high priorities for the Union military bureaucracy but ultimately she sought to change this issue. After the Civil War she was ordered to seek rest in Europe, where she was introduced to the international Red Cross efforts
when the grand duchess of Baden enlisted her help in caring for refugees and wounded soldiers in the Franco-Prussian War. She admired the systematic organization and efficiency of the organization and began to undertake the creation of the American sector of the Red Cross. She would later persuade the United States to implement the America Red Cross with the creation of her pamphlet, The Red Cross Of The Geneva Convention, What Is It? Where she provided the Government with written intentions of The Red Cross which ultimately allowed for The American Red Cross to be present in todays society.
Also in order to see the issues today with the American Red Cross we have to understand her initial views of how the organization is supposed to be operated and the true intentions of the organization.