I may sometimes be willing to teach for nothing. But if paid at all, I shall never do a man\u2019s work for less than a man\u2019s pay
Clara Barton<\/footer><\/blockquote> <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>\n<\/div>
Battling through her own crippling shyness too, Barton took up teaching while still in her teens and by her early 30s had established her own free school in New Jersey. Within a year, it grew from a handful of children to more than 600 students under her direction. However, when the school board decided that managing such a large institution was unsuitable for a woman and hired a man to act as the school\u2019s principal, she resigned.<\/p>\n
Read more | How Florence Nightingale\u2019s nursing by numbers is still influencing today\u2019s healthcare<\/a><\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>
\u201cI may sometimes be willing to teach for nothing,\u201d she once remarked, \u201cbut if paid at all, I shall never do a man\u2019s work for less than a man\u2019s pay.\u201d She moved to Washington, DC, and found a position as a clerk at the Patent Office, where it\u2019s believed she did earn the same salary as her male colleagues. However, it wasn\u2019t to last; hearsay spread by her male co-workers caused her to be demoted.<\/p>\n
What did Clara Barton do in the American Civil War?<\/h2>\n
In 1861, the American Civil War<\/a> broke out and the sight of wounded soldiers arriving in the nation\u2019s capital inspired Barton to begin collecting and organising supplies, and later to commit herself to nursing. Dozens of men came under her watchful care, some of whom she recognised as former students from her teaching days. She threw herself into both the practical administration \u2013 gathering and storing medicines or recovering luggage \u2013 and the emotional care of nursing, spending hours reading to the soldiers, praying with them and writing their letters.<\/p>\n
Read more | Mary Seacole<\/a>: Victorian celebrity, joyful hotelier and Crimean nurse<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>
Barton quickly reached the conclusion that she could do the most good where the fighting was actually happening, and so secured permission to head to the frontlines with the Union Army. Bringing wagons laden with medicines and supplies, she became a regular presence at some of the bloodiest battles in the war, including Antietam.<\/p>\n
Putting her life at risk, she tirelessly nursed the wounded and sick of both sides and searched for the missing. One time, a bullet ripped through her sleeve and hit the man she was nursing. She noted in her journal: \u201cThere was no more to be done for him and I left him to his rest.\u201d<\/p>\n
Why was Clara Barton the \u2018angel of the battlefield\u2019<\/h2>\n
Barton was beloved by soldiers and admired by politicians, capable of building large stores of supplies through donations or, occasionally, paying for them herself. One surgeon, Dr James Dunn, was glowing in his praise of her efforts, bestowing upon her the now-famous nickname when he wrote: \u201cIn my feeble estimation, General McClellan, with all his laurels, sinks into insignificance, beside the true heroine of the age, the angel of the battlefield.\u201d<\/p>\n
In 1864, Barton was made superintendent of nurses for the Union\u2019s Army of the James, and her work did not end with the cessation of hostilities the following year. With the backing of President Abraham Lincoln himself, she set up the Bureau of Records of Missing Men of the Armies of the United States to coordinate the search for soldiers who had gone missing, mostly buried in mass graves, and informing their families. In the end, her team identified some 22,000 men.<\/p>\n
$\"""\"$ <\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/picture><\/div>