Clara Barton Research Paper

Clara Barton was a hero because she puts herself in front of others, acts for the good of others, and inspired people around her. Founder of the Red Cross, and a nurse in the civil war, Clara Barton was born on December 25, 1821 in North Oxford, Massachusetts. She was the youngest of six children. She first began nursing when she had to take care of her brother who was very sick. She was 11 years old at the time. Later she began teaching and opened her own free public school in New Jersey. One year later, she moved to Washington DC to work in the US Patent Office.

In 1861, Clara helped tend to soldiers who were injured after the Baltimore Riot. She continued to work in city hospitals, nursing soldiers back to health. In 1862, she left to work in the field hospitals. Clara brought wagons of much needed supplies with her. She continued helping in the midst of the war, and came close to death many times. Once, while she was helping an injured soldier, she “felt her sleeve move—a bullet had gone through it and killed the man she was tending” (@HistoryNet). On March 11, 1865, Clara was appointed by President Abraham Lincoln to help search for missing soldiers. She set up the Friends of the Missing Men of the United States Army, and helped

A few weeks later, Clara was elected as the leader of this organization. The Red Cross provided relief for victims in awful disasters. The first official project of the Red Cross was to provide funds and clothing to the victims of a forest fire in Michigan. In 1892, Clara and the Red Cross shipped 500 railroad cars of Iowa cornmeal and flour to Russians who were suffering from famine. In her last relief operation in 1900, Clara “distributed over $120,000 in financial assistance and supplies to survivors of the hurricane and tidal wave that struck Galveston, Texas” (“Clara Barton”). Clara Barton died on April 12,