Clara Barton is the most important and influential person known in history today.

Founder of the American Red Cross and hero in the Civil War, Clara was born with a kind heart.
She was an educator, nurse, author, and continued to inspire individuals throughout her whole
life with her work and dedication to helping millions of people. Even the thousands of lives she
affected with her work in the American Red Cross and the Civil War alone does not cover the
importance of her life in world history.
Clara had a simple background growing up. Clarissa Harlowe Barton was born on
December 25, 1821 in Oxford, Massachusetts. She was the youngest of five siblings; Dorothy,
David, Stephen, and Sally. Her father was Stephen Barton, who was a farmer, horse breeder, and
was a respected member of the community. Claras mother, Sarah, managed their household. Her
siblings took up the responsibility of Claras education. Her sister Dorothy taught her spelling,
her brother Stephen taught her math, Sally taught her geography, and David taught her athletics.
By the time Clara started school at four years old, she could already spell three syllable words.
She was a good student and found school to be quite easy. She was also a highly skilled speaker
that gave lectures later in her life, and liked to write.
Later, Clara worked as a teacher at fifteen and established a free public school in New
Jersey, a volunteer and independent nurse in the Civil War, and served as the president of the
American Red Cross. She was also interested and took part in prison reform, womens suffrage,
civil rights, and even spiritualism. Although Clara was very successful, throughout her life she
was struck by periods of severe depression, but always seemed to recover quickly. Clara Barton
died on April 12, 1912 in her home in Glen Echo, Maryland at 90 years old, due to complications
from a cold.
Clara had accomplished many things throughout her life. During a trip to Europe, Clara
had discovered and took part in the International Red Cross organization, and was later inspired
and determined to have the Red Cross treaty signed in the United States. The treaty for the
American Red Cross had to go through two other presidents (Rutherford B. Hayes and James
Garfield) before it was signed in 1882 by president Chester Arthur. Before the treaty was even
signed, in 1881, the Red Cross flag had flown for the first time in America when Clara issued a
public appeal for donations and clothing to help victims from a forest fire in Michigan. In
addition, Clara took part in establishing a national cemetery around the graves of the Union men
who had died in the Andersonville prison in Georgia. She also established the Office of
Correspondence with the Friends of the Missing Men of the United States Army. Later after
resigning from her presidency in the American Red Cross in 1904, Clara established the National
First Aid Association of America and served as honorary president for five years. This
organization taught basic first aid instruction, emergency preparedness, and the developed first
aid kits. While she was serving as an independent nurse during the Civil War, she was
nicknamed The Angel of the Battlefield for her brave work on the field caring for the wounded
soldiers while the battle was still in action. In her life, she also published several books about the
American Red Cross and also the global Red Cross network. She also wrote The Story of My
Childhood, which was intended to be a series of short autobiographies about parts of her life, but
was never completed. These accomplishments were important because they helped many people
in many different ways.
Clara impacted many peoples lives with her hard work. At the beginning of the
Civil War, Clara volunteered and distributed supplies like bandages, socks, and other things to
help the injured soldiers. While working with the Office of Correspondence with the Friends of
the Missing Men of the United States Army, she received and answered over 63,000 letters and
identified over 22,000 missing men with the help of her assistants. Also, while establishing the
international cemetery around the Andersonville prison, Clara identified the graves of nearly
13,000 men with the help of a team of thirty military men and a list of the dead secretly tabulated
by Dorence Atwater during his own imprisonment in Andersonville. Clara helped the soldiers
physically, but she also helped them in other ways. She offered tremendous personal support to
the soldiers in hopes of keeping them happy. She read to them, wrote letters for them, listened to
their personal problems, and prayed with them. On the other hand, she did an abundance of work
in her time as president of the American Red Cross, too. In 1884, Clara authorized steamers to
carry supplies up and down the Mississippi river to assist flood victims. In 1889, Clara and fifty
other volunteers rode a train to Johnstown, Pennsylvania to help the survivors of a dam break. In
1892, she organized help for Russians suffering from starvation by shipping them 500 railroad
cars of cornmeal and flour. In 1893, after a hurricane and tidal wave killed over 5,000 people on
the Sea Islands of South Carolina, the Red Cross labored for ten months helping the large
African-American population recover and reestablish their agricultural economy. In 1896, she
directed relief operations for victims of unrest in Turkey and Armenia, and was the only Red
Cross advocate the Turkish government allowed to be involved. Finally, during Claras last relief
operation in 1900, Barton distributed over $120,000 in financial assistance and supplies to
survivors of the hurricane and tidal wave that hit Galveston, Texas. As you can see, her work in
the Red Cross had helped and improved lives everywhere. Even today, the American Red cross
still helps out millions of people by providing things like disaster relief, blood drives, support to
military families, health and safety courses, and even international services.
In the end, Claras actions have affected billions of people all over the world. Not only
did she personally help thousands in her lifetime, but her actions still are seen today in the work
of the American Red Cross Association and are remembered by others. She accomplished and
helped so many people physically and emotionally with her work, dedication, and kind heart.
Clara Barton is the most important, influential, and amazing person known in history.