J.K. Rowling once said, “The power of human empathy lead[s] to collective action, [the] sav[ing of] lives, and [the] free[ing of] prisoners.” Clara Barton was once a volunteer nurse with a strong sense of compassion for the ill and in-need; she eventually became the face for humanitarianism. As Barton strived to improve the lives of others, she defied societal standards for women and provided assistance that is more readily available. Clara Barton was an eminent and distinguished figure because she established a successful healthcare organization, proved women could work in institutions as equals to men, and impacted healthcare in America. To begin, Clara Barton was an eminent and distinguished figure because she established a successful healthcare organization. She founded the …show more content…
Because Barton founded and was the president of a successful organization, she proved women were capable of working in large organizations. Barton’s breaking of societal standards opened a door for women to hold high positions of leadership, reaching outside of the medical field. For instance, Kate Gleason became the first female president of a national bank in 1917, and Letitia Pate Whitehead became the first female to be on Coca-Cola Bottling Company’s Board of Directors in 1934 (Fisher, 2015). The positions of leadership that both women held related back to Barton’s work. To continue, all of her efforts allowed women’s work participation rate to rise up to 56.2% in 2020, outdoing men’s participation rate (“Women in the labor force: a databook,” 2022). Out of the women working, 90% of current female nurses are in the medical profession (“Clara Barton and Nursing,” 2013). This demonstrates Barton’s eminence in the workforce, which exceeded her field of study. For these reasons, Clara Barton was an eminent figure who had an influential