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Clara Barton,1821-1912: A
Life of Caring for Others |
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She started the American Red
Cross. Transcript of radio broadcast: |
VOICE
ONE:
I'm Ray
Freeman.
VOICE TWO:
And I'm
Shirley Griffith with the Special English program, People in America. Every
week we tell about a person who was important in the history of the United
States. Today we tell about a woman who spent her life caring for others, Clara
Barton.
(MUSIC)
VOICE ONE:
Clara
Barton was a small woman. Yet she made a big difference in many lives. Today
her work continues to be important to thousands of people in trouble.
Clara Barton was an unusual woman for her time. She was born on Christmas day,
December twenty-fifth, eighteen twenty-one. In those days, most women were expected to marry, have children and stay home to take
care of them. Barton, however, became deeply involved in the world.
By the time of her death in nineteen twelve, she had begun a revolution that
led to the right of women to do responsible work for society. As a nurse, she
cared for thousands of Wounded soldiers. She began the
American Red Cross. And, she successfully urged the American government to
accept the Geneva Convention. That treaty established standards for conditions
for soldiers injured or captured during wartime.
VOICE TWO:
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Clara Barton |
Clara
Barton really began her life of caring for the sick when she was only eleven
years old. She lived with her family on a farm in the northeastern state of
Massachusetts. One of her
brothers, David, was seriously injured while helping build a barn. For two
years, Clara Barton took care of David until he was healed.
Most eleven-year-old girls would have found the job impossible. But Clara felt
a great need to help. And she was very good at it. She also seemed to feel most
safe when she was at home with her mother and father, or riding a horse on her
family's land.
As a young child, Clara had great difficulty studying and making friends at
school. Her four brothers and sisters were much older than she. Several of them
were teachers. For most of Clara's early years, she was taught at home. She
finished school at age fifteen. Then she went to work in her brother
David's clothing factory. The factory soon burned, leaving her without a
job.
VOICE
ONE:
Clara
Barton decided to teach school. In eighteen thirty-six, she passed the
teacher's test and began teaching near her home in North Oxford, Massachusetts.
She became an extremely popular and respected teacher.
After sixteen years of teaching, she realized she did not know all she wanted
to know. She wanted more education. Very few universities accepted women in
those days. So Clara went to a special school for girls in Massachusetts. While
in that school, she became interested in public education.
VOICE TWO:
After
she graduated, a friend suggested she try to establish the first public school
in the state of New Jersey. Officials there seemed to think that education was
only for children whose parents had enough money to pay for private schools.
The officials did not want Barton to start a school for poor people. But she
offered to teach without pay for three months. She told the officials that they
could decide after that if she
had been successful. They gave her an old building with poor equipment. And
they gave her six very active little boys to teach.
At the end of five weeks, the school was too small for the number of children
who wanted to attend. By the end of the year, the town built her a bigger,
better school. They had to give her more space. She then had six hundred
students in the school.
(MUSIC)
VOICE ONE:
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This
photo of Clara Barton -- taken around 1865 by Mathew Brady -- is the most
famous and widely circulated image of the founder of the American Red Cross. |
Within
a year, Clara Barton had lost her voice. She had to give up teaching. She moved
to Washington, D.C. to begin a new job writing documents for the United States
government.
Clara Barton started her life as a nurse during the early days of the Civil War
in eighteen sixty-one. One day, she went to the train center in Washington to
meet a group of soldiers from Massachusetts. Many of them had been her friends.
She began taking care of their wounds.
Not long after, she left her office job. She became a full-time nurse for the
wounded on their way from the fields of battle to the hospital.
Soon, Barton recognized that many more lives could be saved if the men had
medical help immediately after they were hurt. Army rules would not permit
anyone except male soldiers to be on the battlefield. But Barton took her plans
for helping the wounded to a high army official. He approved her plans.
VOICE TWO:
Barton
and a few other women worked in the battle areas around Washington. She heard
about the second fierce battle at Bull Run in the nearby state of Virginia. She
got into a railroad car and traveled there.
Bull Run must have been a fearful sight. Northern forces were losing a major
battle there. Everywhere Barton looked lay wounded and dying men.
Day and night she worked to help the suffering. When the last soldier had been
placed on a train, Barton finally left. She was just in time to escape the
southern army. She escaped by riding a horse, a skill she gained as a young
girl.
(MUSIC)
VOICE ONE:
For
four years, Clara Barton was at the front lines of the bloodiest battles in the
war between the North and the South. She was there at Antietam, Fredericksburg,
and Charleston. She
was there at Spotsylvania, Petersburg, and Richmond. She cleaned the wounds of
badly injured soldiers. She eased the pain of the dying. And she fed those who
survived.
When she returned to Washington, Clara Barton found she was a hero. She had
proved that women could work in terrible conditions. She made people understand
that women could provide good medical care. She also showed that nursing was an
honorable
profession.
After the war ended, Barton's doctor sent her to Europe to rest. Instead of
resting, she met with representatives of the International Red Cross. The
organization had been established
in eighteen sixty-three to offer better treatment for people wounded or
captured during wars. She was told that the United States was the only major
nation that refused to join.
VOICE TWO:
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Clara Barton monument at Antietam |
Barton
began planning a campaign to create an American Red Cross. Before she could go
home, though, the war between France and Prussia began in eighteen seventy.
Again, Clara Barton went to the fields of battle to nurse the wounded. After a
while her eyes became infected. The woman of action was ordered to remain quiet
for months in a dark room, or become blind.
When she returned to the United States she again suffered a serious sickness.
She used the time in a hospital to write letters in support of an American Red
Cross organization.
(MUSIC)
VOICE ONE:
In
eighteen eighty-one, Barton's campaign proved successful. The United States
Congress signed the World's Treaty of the International Red Cross. This
established the American Chapter of the Red Cross. Clara Barton had reached one
of her major goals in life.
The next year she successfully urged Congress to accept the Geneva Convention.
This treaty set the international rules for treatment of soldiers wounded or
captured in war.
For twenty-five years, Clara Barton continued as the president of the American
Red Cross. Under her guidance, the organization helped people in all kinds of
trouble. She directed the aid efforts for victims of floods in Johnstown,
Pennsylvania and Galveston, Texas. She led Red Cross workers in Florida during
an outbreak of the disease yellow fever. And she helped during periods when
people were starving in Russia and Armenia.
VOICE TWO:
Clara
Barton retired when she was in her middle eighties. For her last home, she
chose a huge old building near Washington, D.C. The building had been used for
keeping Red Cross equipment and then as her office. It was made with material
saved from aid centers built after the flood in Johnstown.
In that house on the Potomac River, Clara Barton lived her remaining days. She
died after a life of service to others in April, nineteen twelve, at age
ninety.
She often said: "You must never so much as think if you like it or not, if
it is bearable or not. You must never think of anything except the need --- and
how to meet it."
(MUSIC)
VOICE ONE:
This
Special English program was written by Jeri Watson. I'm Ray Freeman.
VOICE TWO:
And I'm
Shirley Griffith. Join us again next week for another People in America program
on the Voice of America.