Women You May Not Know

The shy child of a militiaman, Clara Barton (1821-1912) became a successful teacher and opened the first free school in New Jersey, but office politics drove her to the Civil War front.

By 1862, Barton was providing food and medical care to Union soldiers at major battles including Antietam and Fredericksburg. Dubbed the “Angel of the Battlefield,” she served as a nurse until war’s end, and then ran the Office of Missing Soldiers.

Barton was introduced to the Red Cross in Switzerland in 1869; she gained support for a branch in war-weary America by extending humanitarian aid to civilians in flood, famine, and other natural disasters. Under Barton’s command, the American Red Cross would offer aid across continents—to Spanish refugees, to Cuban invalids, to children orphaned in Texas hurricanes.

When she met Susan B. Anthony in 1867, Barton was already long-sympathetic to the feminist cause; she spoke at the first national women’s suffrage convention in 1869, and, at a gathering of 400 in Maryland, praised her suffragist friends.

By Jen Hawkins