| What makes it historical? |
Ms. Barton was originally a schoolteacher, but her desire to help others even more led her to the battlefields of the Civil War! She healed wounded soldiers at Fredricksburg and Antietam, and dedicated a lot of effort to locating missing soldiers after the war (for which Congress awarded her $15,000 in compensation)!
After visiting Europe and assisting with the International Red Cross during the Franco-Prussian War, Ms. Barton returned to the US and lobbied strongly for a similar organization to be developed in the States, which she accomplished in 1881! As the head of the new American Red Cross, she oversaw disaster relief for floods and hurricanes until 1904; hurricane relief just isn’t something the history books detail when they talk about the Civil War and Reconstruction eras! Most notably, Ms. Barton never took a salary for all her work with the Red Cross! |
