By James Edward Purdy
On this day in 1881, Clara Barton founded the American Red Cross. She lived a long and independent life and prevailed over hindrances and conventions that limited women of her era and that still do today. She first learned to care for the ailing early on when she tended to her brother for two years after a fall. She attended college, taught students, and formed a free public school. She was the first female U.S. Patent Office clerk, but left during the Civil War to nurse the wounded, risking her own life repeatedly. After the war she formed the Friends of the Missing Men, to search for MIA Union soldiers. She knew and was probably inspired by people like Frederick Douglas and Susan B. Anthony to pursue even higher social goals.
In the 1870s during a lecture tour, she became involved with the beginnings of the International Red Cross, based in Switzerland, forming the American Red Cross, as noted, in 1881. Frederick Douglas signed its original incorporation papers. She served in its relief efforts, but seemed to fall short in managing its business and fund raising needs.
During her time, the American Red Cross provided relief after the Johnstown Flood, in Cuba during the Spanish-American War, and after the Galveston Hurricane of 1900, the year Congress granted a charter for the organization. She left its leadership in 1904, but its service continues today, thanks to one woman’s service and vision. Like all human institutions and perhaps Clara Barton as well, it occasionally falls short in our times, but its red cross symbol remains the first welcome sign of relief one sees after disaster strikes.
We are saturated today with words and opinions from all sides on issues of import and too many that are not. Clara Barton serves still today to remind us that actions do indeed speak louder than mere utterances.
