Red Cross History
Clara Barton, founder of the American Red Cross, lives on in American history as a pioneering woman, nurse, humanitarian, teacher, and forward-thinker. Today, the organization that Miss Barton created has more than a million volunteers and 30,000 employees nationally. The Red Cross provides vital services in the areas of blood donations, disaster relief, military aid, health education, and community service.
Clara Barton, a native of Oxford, Massachusetts was born on December 25th,1821 and started nursing at a very young age. She nursed her ill brother, David, for two years, and her nursing talent would be extraordinarily necessary at the outbreak of the American Civil War in 1861. Miss Barton realized that needed supplies were not reaching the soldiers at the front lines, so she created an agency to organize, deliver, and provide the supplies. Miss Barton aided both Union and Confederate soldiers; she nursed them on the front lines during the most brutal battles of the war.
Union general Benjamin Butler declared that Miss Barton was the “Lady in Charge,” of the frontline hospitals of the Union army. For the remainder of the war, Clara worked tirelessly to save lives on the front lines. At the war’s end, President Abraham Lincoln put her in charge of identifying missing Union soldiers and she was able to discover the fate of an astounding 30,000 men.
While on a “restful” trip to Europe, Miss Barton witnessed firsthand the work of the International Red Cross. On her return to the United States in 1873, she campaigned the U.S. government for recognition of the Red Cross society. She finally succeeded and on May 21st 1881, Clara Barton became the first president of the American Red Cross.
The American Red Cross devoted itself largely to disaster relief for the first 20 years of its existence. The Red Cross flag was flown officially for the first time in this country in 1881 when Miss Barton was appealing for funds and clothing in Dansville New York to aid victims of forest fires in Michigan. In 1884, she chartered steamers to take supplies down the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers to help flooded families. In 1889, she helped to provide relief in Johnstown, Pennsylvania, after its great flood. In 1892, she organized assistance for Russians suffering from famine, and in 1896, she directed relief operations in Turkey and Armenia.
Clara Barton spent the last 15 years of her life in her Glen Echo, Maryland home, and it served as an early headquarters of the American Red Cross as well. In 1975, the Clara Barton National Historic Site was established as a unit of the National Park Service at her Glen Echo home. The first National Historic Site dedicated to the accomplishments of a woman, it preserves the early history of the American Red Cross and the last home of its founder.
The National Park Service has restored eleven rooms, including the Red Cross offices, parlors and Miss Barton's bedroom. Visitors to the Clara Barton National Historic Site can gain a sense of how Miss Barton lived and worked surrounded by all that went into her life's work. Visitors to the site are led through the three levels on a guided tour emphasizing Miss Barton's use of her unusual home, and come to appreciate the site in the same way visitors did in Clara Barton's lifetime.
Miss Barton died on April 12, 1912 at the age of 91, after a lifetime of selfless humanitarian service.
