Clara Barton

Clarissa "Clara" Harlowe Barton (December 25, 1821 – April 12, 1912) was a pioneering nurse who founded the American Red Cross. She worked as a hospital nurse in the American Civil War, and as a teacher and patent clerk. Barton is noteworthy for doing humanitarian work at a time when relatively few women worked outside the home. She had a relationship with John J. Elwell, but never married.

Early life

Clara Barton was born Clarissa Harlowe Barton on December 25, 1821 in North Oxford, Massachusetts. Barton's father was Captain Stephen Barton, a member of the local militia and a selectman. Barton's mother was Sarah Stone Barton.

When she was three years old, Clara Barton was sent to school with her brother Stephen, where she excelled in reading and spelling. At school, she became close friends with Nancy Fitts; this is the only known friend Clara Barton had as a child due to her extreme timidity.

When she was ten years old, she assigned herself the task of nursing her brother David back to health after he fell from the roof of a barn and received a severe injury. She learned how to distribute the prescribed medication to her brother, as well as how to place leeches on his body to bleed him (a standard treatment at this time.) She continued to care for David long after doctors had given up, and he made a full recovery.

Clara

Clara may refer to:

Organizations

People

Surname

Places

Other uses

Clara (Mirbeau)

Clara is the main character in the French Novel The Torture Garden ((French) Le Jardin des supplices, 1899), by Octave Mirbeau.

A free woman

Clara, who has no last name or civil status, is an English woman with red hair and green eyes--“a greyish green of the young fruits of the almond tree.” Single, rich and bisexual, Clara lives in near Canton, and leads an idle existence, entirely devoted to finding perverse pleasures. She is fully emancipated, financially and sexually, and freed from oppressive laws and taboos prevailing in the West and which, according to her critique of anarchist inspiration, prohibit the development of the individual. Clara thus claims to enjoy complete freedom. She particularly enjoys visiting the city prison every week, which is open to tourists on Wednesday. Clara delights in watching the death row inmates, many of whom are innocent or guilty of minor offenses, being brutally tortured and put to death.

This protagonist meets the anonymous narrator, a petty political crook, aboard the Saghalien, where the pseudo-embryologist was sailing to Ceylon, as part of an official mission. In reality, his primary goal is just to distance himself from France. She seduces him, awakening his sexual desire along with the need to unburden himself, and becomes his mistress. She takes him with her to China, where both the narrator and Clara share a lover, Annie.

Clara (TV series)

Clara is a German television series.

See also

External links