Way back in 1857 in Worcester, Massachusetts, Clara Barton showed her humanitarian spirit and organization ability. Under the Reverend Horace James, she assisted in the organization of the Band of Hope,[3] a society originating in Scotland whose object was: “To Promote the Cause of Temperance and Good Morals of the Children and Youth.”
First Temperance Society organized in America, in 1789; First National Temperance Convention, in 1833; a “temperance revolution” urged, in 1842, by Abraham Lincoln; Women’s Christian Temperance Union organized in 1874; National Prohibition went into effect January 16, 1920.
On the breaking out of the Civil War, the Reverend James became Chaplain of the Twenty-fifth Massachusetts Regiment, and two of the boys that Clara Barton induced to join the society became officers of the Fifty-seventh Massachusetts Regiment. One was Colonel J. Brainard Hall and the other Captain George E. Barton. At the Battle of the Wilderness the Colonel Hall referred to was seriously, then thought to be fatally, wounded. Clara Barton was the first at his side to nurse, and to care for, him. As soon as he was able to be moved, she sent him to Washington to be cared for there by one whom she told him was her very dear friend. Stranger than fiction, on reaching Washington, Colonel Hall discovered this friend to be the “Hired Man,” previous to 1839, who worked in his grandmother’s shoe-shop,—the late Henry Wilson, Vice-President of the United States.
Every woman who loves her country and who realizes what true patriotism means will always revere the name of Clara Barton, and connect it with the highest ideal of service to one’s country. DR. ANNA H. SHAW _President American Woman Suffrage Association_.
Clara Barton has won the hearts of the women of the world. CARRIE CHAPMAN CATT, _President American Woman Suffrage Association_.
John Marshall, for thirty-five years Chief Justice of the U. S. Supreme Court, held the female sex the equals of men.
I had not learned to equip myself—for I was no Pallas ready armed but grew into my work by hard thinking and sad experience.
I am a woman and know what barriers oppose all womanly efforts. HARRIET G. HOSMER.
Clara Barton is the best clerk, either man or woman, I ever had in my office. MR. MASON, _Commissioner of Patents_.