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Clara Barton: Patent Office
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Clara Barton received an education at home before becoming a teacher at age 15. She later attended the Liberal Institute in Clinton, New York. Clara enjoyed the challenge of starting a new organization, and she started a school in New Jersey in 1852. The school became so popular that the leaders of the town would no longer allow a woman to run it. Clara was sad about their decision, so she resigned and took a job at the U.S. Patent Office in Washington, D.C. She was one of only a few women working for the government at that time.
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Clara went to Washington, DC., with her friend, Fanny Childs, to seek employment. While there, she met Charles Mason, the Commissioner of Patents. In July, 1854, Clara began working as a record clerk at the Patent Office. She received the same salary as the male workers. Clara lost this job in 1857, when Mason resigned. Clara visited friends and family in Massachusetts where she took classes in art and French.
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By 1900 Barton had moved the Red Cross headquarters from downtown Washington to Glen Echo, Maryland. There she built a large structure on her own property for offices, storage facilities and her personal living space. Though the building lacked many comforts, she made it her home even after giving up the Red Cross presidency in 1904. In 1905 she was named honorary president of the National First Aid Association of America, a rival organization later absorbed by the Red Cross.
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After a year in Clinton, Barton accepted a teaching position in New Jersey. She subsequently opened a free school in Bordentown, and the school's attendance grew to more than 600 students. When the school board refused to offer Barton the high paying position to head the school and hired a man instead, she found herself at a crossroads. Following a period of physical and emotional exhaustion, Barton moved to Washington DC, where she worked as a clerk in the U.S Patent Office.
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The National Park Service has restored eleven rooms, including the Red Cross offices, parlors and Clara Barton's bedroom. Visitors to Clara Barton National Historic Site can gain a sense of how Barton lived and worked surrounded by all that went into her life's work. Visitors to the site are led through the three levels on a guided tour emphasizing Barton's use of her unusual home. [1]
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Among the items discovered were clothes, slippers and household items that indicated that the office many have been used as a residence for Miss Barton. Within the discovered material, a sign was found that marked the location of her missing persons office. The sign read:
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