Clarissa Harlow “Clara” Barton was founder of American Red Cross, educator and nurse. She was born in Oxford, Massachusetts on December 25, 1821. She spent much of her time helping others, such as tending to her brother after he was involved in an accident. At the age of 15 she became a schoolteacher and later went to open a free public school in New Jersey. She later became a clerk in the U.S. Patent Office in 1854 but lost the job two years later when the Democrats won the presidency. Throughout her life she was a teacher and helped people whenever the opportunity appeared. From 1861-1865 the Civil War had taken place in the United States. Many men went and fought to protect the rights that they believed in. Thousands were killed and millions more were injured due to the fighting. Many women volunteered and signed up as nurses to help the injured men and try to save their lives. Their duty as nurses was not to only help those that were sick or injured but keep the others healthy enough to fight. Clarissa Barton was one of those women who signed up as a nurse during the Civil War. At first she collected and distributed supplies and meals for the Union Army. She quickly got tired of just taking care of supplies and meals so she went to the front lines to help the injured men. Clarissa was on the frontlines to clean wounds, meet basic needs, and comfort the soldiers in death. Some battles Clarissa saw combat in were at Fredericksburg, Virginia and Antietam. “When tending to
Nearly 20,000 women worked directly towards the American Civil War effort. Clara Barton, and many other brave women risked their lives aiding the sick and wounded alongside Dorthea Dix. Elizabeth Blackwell and Clara Barton were both inspired to create aid and relief organizations. The few female surgeons during the civil war took part in destroying the stereotype that women can’t be surgeons. Hannah Ropes and Mary Ann Bickerdyke stood up to their male superiors and achieved respect in the hospitals across America. As the American Civil War progressed, women started to stray from their traditional feminine roll by supporting the medical field in many ways, such as nursing on the battlefront and creating aid organizations, becoming surgeons, and earning respect in the hospital system.
Over 5000 volunteer nurses’ north and south served in military hospitals during the Civil War. Nurses were of all sorts and came from all over. Women wanted to be involved in this national struggle in any way they could. They did not want to stay home and play their traditional domestic roles that social convention and minimal career opportunities had confined the majority of their sex to. Many women thought of nursing as an extension of their home duties, almost like taking care of “their boys.” They recall the Civil War as a time when their work as nurses made a difference. It gave them an opportunity to prove they had the ability and courage to help.
Fondly referred to as the "angel of the battlefield" (The Encyclopedia Britannica Online), Clara Barton served as one of the greatest humanitarians this country has ever known. Persistent beyond belief, Clara employed her remarkable interpersonal skills to teach unruly school children, to collect supplies to send to the battlefront, and to struggle to form the American Red Cross. An equal rights advocate, her most memorable successes consisted of improvements in education, foreign aid, and blacks' and women's rights. This American heroine, whose efforts and bravery have become legendary, worked diligently to reach her ideal: "creating the vigilant social conscience which alone can safeguard individual
First off the nurses were important because they were the ones who helped the injured ones or the sick ones. Normally it would be the nurses who would find out if the women disguised as men would actually be a woman and when they found out the truth they would have to go and tell a genreal the truth. Now between 2,000 to 5,000 women volunteered as nurses during the war. Nursing was a gruesome job that provided an upclose look at the horrific casualties of the war. Civil War nurses cleaned wounds, fed soldiers, dispensed medication and assisted surgeons during operations and medical procedure like amputations.
From 1861 to 1865, “between 2,000 to 5,000 women” volunteered to serve as nurses in military hospitals during the Civil War. Nurses from all over came to lend a hand during this devastating time. Clara Barton, Annie Etheridge, Dorothea Dix, Susie King Taylor, and Helen Gilson were just a few of the many nurses who volunteer their services to the war effort. Women wanted to be involved and help out as much as they could. Most women did not want to be at home - doing their traditional domestic work. Many women thought that helping out during the Civil War as nurses was an addition to doing their home duties. Women also believed that working as a nurse helping soldiers during the war would make a difference in how people viewed them. Being a
During the Civil War, women accepted the generally male occupation of nurses. Nursing was one of the most significant ways that women contributed to the war. It is estimated that over 3,000 women volunteered as nurses during the Civil War. According to Women in the Civil War, “so many women eagerly volunteered for the job, they earned a nickname from the press, Florence Nightingales”. Until the Civil War, women rarely worked as nurses outside the home. Whether on the side of the Confederate or the Union women took care of the wounded the best they could. Huge causalities on both sides meant everyone was directly affected by the war, even those living far from the battlefields. In many places in the South, where most of the fighting took place, every available building became hospitals, and women
Before the war, few women were nurses. Being a nurse was a man’s job, but now that most men got called out to the war they were in need of nurses. Since women had the time to help, several volunteered themselves. Many men thought the job wouldn’t be appropriate for them. They didn’t want their delicate women to be subjected to the horrors of war, but as time went on they realized how strong they were, mentally and physically. Although a large amount of them were untrained to be nurses, they did an excellent job attending the soldiers. Some women demonstrated their leadership skills, like Dorothea Dix who stepped forward and became the Union Superintendent of Nurses. She recruited volunteer nurses that were over the age of 30 and were “plain looking women”. She recruited these women because she didn’t want people to think that the women were there for the men’s sexual desires. Since there had already been a big controversy were women were being called prostitutes for being nurses (Wayne). Other women took their housekeeping skills to the soldiers’ camps, cooking and doing their laundry. A few women worked as spies for their
Clara Barton, born Clarissa Harlowe Barton, is one of the most significant figures in US history. Barton is well known for being a female pioneer in the field of teaching, as well as for her work in the US patent office during the Civil war. These feats alone make her a historical figure; however, she is also known for something which far surpasses these accomplishments. Clara Barton is recognized and remembered today for her extraordinary work as a nurse during the American Civil War, and for going on to establish the American Red Cross. (Clara Barton; Clara Barton)
She later got caught and was later put into prison in 1864 by confederate troops and taken into prison. Along with Mary Edward walker, Clara Barton, was an Army nurse. Clara was to serve help in curing injured men. She had a bad experience when she went to go cure a man, a bullet that killed the man she was helping was peireced threw her sleeve. She had been assisting him and tried to save him, but it was too late and he had died. Also these women made a legacy in life, Underground Railroad, being the first US army women surgeon, and the foundation of the American Red Cross. Mary Todd Lincoln, who was married to Abraham Lincoln. Although she was a lot different then the other important women in the civil war, she was just as important. She was the wife of the president during the war. Although she did not exactly fight or become a nurse of the war, she still had to take care of her family and all of Abraham’s stressful days. She had to mend to her children’s needs while Abraham was out making sure the troops in the war were in the right standings. When 1865 came around it was a terrible year for her, her family and her heart were crushed. Her loved one was assassinated, and her family and herself had no idea how to handle it. Being that she was the presidents wife, she was still important to make a legacy. Showed that women are strong enough to handle stress, children, and deaths in their family to be strong for
I chose Clara Barton because of the work that she did. I knew that women were involved in the Civil War but did not know to what extent. When the war broke out she volunteered at the Washington Infirmary. The text book stated that she was one of the first to volunteer. She won permission to nurse the wounded on the battle fields (“Clara Barton”, 2). She brought supplies on three wagons to the Battle of Antietam (2). She travelled with her wagons throughout the war helping the wounded Union soldiers and the Confederate prisoners. Most of the supplies were purchased through private donations and Barton’s own money (2). In 1880 she founded the American Red Cross after a trip in 1869 to Geneva, Switzerland as a
In “Letters of a Civil War Nurse”, written in 1863, Cornelia Hancock’s account of the Civil War gives readers an account of the suffering and hardship of soldiers through the point of view of an Union nurse. This document written by Cornelia Hancock is an account as a nurse who went through the Battle of Gettysburg and the after effects. Through a series of letters written to her loved ones, Cornelia wrote what nurses went through during the times of war. At the time women were expected to be good wives; with Cornelia Hancock’s effort she was able to help soldiers and contribute to the idea that women are capable of much more than being good wives; women can be apart of war. With her background as a Quaker and her family history, Cornelia Hancock was able to contribute greatly to the war effort even though she was originally denied to becoming an union nurse.
After the Civil War Clara Barton supported families impacted by the Civil War by establishing the of the Office of Missing Soldiers in Washington, DC. Her office worked dilligently to identify missing and killed soldiers in order to contact the distraught familes.
To begin with, Clara Barton was not only the founder of the American Red Cross, a relief to those hurt in war or natural disasters, but someone who was admired as a hero to many people in the past and
In 1863, Susie traveled with her husband’s regiment. She became the first black nurse during the Civil War, and helped to care for wounded soldiers. During her off hours she taught the soldiers how to read and write, and also cooked and laundered for them. She wrote in her diary about the nursing shortages during the war, and was happy to provide nursing care to the sick soldiers. She continued to serve as a nurse until the war ended in 1865. (MacLean, 2007).
Women, regardless of the opposition, were determined to support their armies and their beliefs even on the battlefield. The North and South armies of the country were fighting without proper organization from their respective governments, leading women to volunteer to help their men in whatever manner they could. Contributing to the war effort, women were “responsible for much of the clothing, feeding, and nursing of the soldiers.”18 Women would cook and do the laundry for the soldiers, working in camps away from the battlefield. Other women would provide comfort for the dying soldiers, nurturing the wounded and staying with the men who were dying until their last moments. Their efforts were to offset the fact that the wounded men were separated from their loved ones and “represented domestic tranquility in the midst of armed conflict.”19 Women were not prohibited from nursing injured soldiers because it was “not yet a profession requiring special training…care of the sick and injured was traditionally a female skill”20. Nursing was not the only important contribution that women provided during the war. They also worked within their communities to make up for the men who had left to fight in the war, managing homes and plantations,