LYCOS RETRIEVER 
Clara Barton: United States
built 607 days ago
At age 30 Barton enrolled as a student at the Clinton Liberal Institute in New York State. When the term ended, schoolmates Charles and Mary Norton invited her for an extended visit with their family in Hightstown, New Jersey. Soon she was teaching in the Cedarville school and later in Bordentown. There she started a free public school like those in Massachusetts, previously unknown in New Jersey. The school was so successful that a new building was constructed and additional teachers hired. A man was brought in to head the school at a salary of $600, greater by $350 than Barton's.
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Barton suffered from periods of poor health. In 1869 she went to Geneva, Switzerland, hoping to improve her condition through rest and change. There she met officials of the recently organized International Red Cross, a group that worked to help victims of war. They urged her to seek U.S. agreement to the Geneva Convention, a treaty that permitted medical personnel to be treated as neutral parties who could aid the sick and wounded during wars. Before Barton could turn to this task the Franco-Prussian War (1870–71), a war in which France was defeated by a group of German states led by Prussia, began.
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For the next three years Barton traveled along with the army operations throughout Virginia and South Carolina, especially in the area of Charleston. Following the Battle of the Wilderness, she cared for the wounded at Fredericksburg, Virginia, so well that she attracted national attention. From this point she then served as superintendent of nurses in Major General Benjamin Butler's command. In addition to nursing, Clara ... formed a program at Camp Parole, Maryland, whereby she attempted to locate any soldier who was listed as missing in action. In order to carry out this program, she generally talked with Union soldiers who had returned from Southern prisons, and in doing so, often was able to determine the status of the missing and would then notify their families.
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Barton's health continued to trouble her; in 1869 she went to Geneva, Switzerland, for rest and a change. There, officials of the International Red Cross, organized in 1864, urged her to seek United States agreement to the Geneva Convention recognizing the work of the Red Cross; the powerful U.S. Sanitary Commission had been unable to obtain it. But before Barton could turn to the task, the Franco-Prussian War began.
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The American Red Cross organization was formed in 1881, and Barton served as its first president. Barton remained Red Cross president until 1904. During her tenure, she headed up relief work for disasters such as famines, floods, pestilence, and earthquakes in the United States and throughout the world. In 1904, at the age of 82, she resigned her post.
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