WORCESTER MEDICINE
Medicine in Worcester Clara Barton: An Influential Nurse from Central Massachusetts Joanne Lewis PhD, RN, ACNP-BC
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larissa (clara) harlowe barton was born on Christmas Day in Oxford, Massachusetts in 1821 to Captain Stephen Barton and Sarah Stone Barton. She was the youngest of five children and her older siblings took great interest in her education, as three of them later became teachers. Her father was a military man who taught Clara how to be precise and accurate and instilled a good work ethic. Her older brother, David, was adept at running farms and riding horses, and Clara loved to spend her wild childhood outdoors with him on their 300-acre farm. When Clara was 11 years old, her brother David fell off the roof of the barn and was badly hurt, sustaining a terrible head injury. Clara was instrumental in getting him back to walking and talking- something the local doctor said could never happen. (1) She was smart as a whip and quickly advanced her studies, and at 12-years-old went on to attend Oxford high school taught by Colonel Richard Stone, a wellknown militia officer. Oxford high school was known for its advanced scholars and often fed its pupils directly into Harvard and Yale. (2) Clara was very timid by nature, and her father recognized that while she wouldn’t stand up for herself, she would fiercely stand up for others. He encouraged her to become a teacher, and by the time she was 15, she had proven her extensive knowledge and began teaching at Oxford high school, often teaching men in their 20s. (1) She became a passionate advocate of education for all children and equal pay for teachers. She also worked as a bookkeeper and accountant for her brother, who owned several mills in central Massachusetts. (2) She earned her first teaching certificate in 1839 and after her mother died in 1851, she decided to attend college at the Clinton Liberal Institute in New York. While there, she learned about a lack of public schools in a nearby town so she took it upon herself to open a free school in Bordentown, New Jersey. She was successful for many years and helped teach over 600 pupils. Unfortunately, the school was taken over by a man as it was deemed unfitting for a woman to be in the position of leading such a large institution. Therefore in 1855, she moved to Washington DC and became the first paid female clerk in the US Patent Office. (3)
In 1861, while still living in Washington DC, the Civil War broke out. Barton wanted to help the men injured in battle, for some of these men she had grown up with and even taught. She quickly organized provisions for the wounded soldiers on the battlefield and used her many contacts throughout Massachusetts and Washington DC as suppliers. She finally gained support from Quartermaster Daniel Rucker to work on the front lines in 1862. (4) Barton helped both the Union and Confederate soldiers. She was nicknamed the “Florence Nightingale of America” and the “Angel of the Battlefield.” She worked side-by-side with front-line surgeons at such battles as Cedar Mountain in North Virginia and the Battle of Antietam. At this time, President Abraham Lincoln personally gave her the title of volunteer war nurse, giving her the ability to travel on the front lines without pause. (2) At the end of the war, she discovered thousands of unanswered letters addressed to the War Department from distraught families asking about their missing loved ones. She asked President Lincoln to allow her to respond to these inquiries officially. She ran the Office of Missing Soldiers with the purpose of trying to find or identify soldiers killed or missing in action. Barton and her assistants helped locate over 33,000 lost Union and Confederate soldiers. She used her own money to fund this, but was eventually awarded $15,000 from Congress. (3) From 1865 to 1868, she lectured around the country about her experiences. She met Susan B. Anthony and began working with the women’s suffrage movement. She also became acquainted with Frederick Douglass and became an activist for civil rights. (4) She traveled to Europe in 1868, and it was there that she was introduced to the International Society of the Red Cross. In 1870, she assisted the International Society of the Red Cross and military hospitals during the Franco-Prussian war. She was instrumental in providing public distribution of supplies and received honorable decorations for her work. When she came back to the United States, she lobbied the American government to institute an American branch of the International Committee of the Red Cross. (5) After meeting with President Chester Arthur, she finally gained
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