"I may be compelled to face danger, but never fear it, and while our soldiers can stand and fight, I can stand and feed and nurse them"-Clara Barton. .
The desire to help people was always a part of Clara Barton's life. Even at the age of eleven, she demonstrated that when she took care of her brother when he became ill. Seven years later, Barton opened a free school where she was a teacher who taught all the young children who would not otherwise have had the chance for a better education. When the school did not offer her the higher paying position to head the school, she resigned. She became busy once the Civil War started, volunteering her time and effort to help the wounded soldiers by advertising for supplies and nursing the injured. This was just the beginning of the foundation of the Red Cross, and later Barton did all that she could do to help expand the Red Cross throughout the United States. In three biography excerpts, from Clara Barton: Professional Angel by Elizabeth Pryor, Angel of the Battlefield: The Life of Clara Barton by Ishbel Ross, and Clara Barton: In the Service of Humanity by David Burton, the authors present to us insights about who Clara Barton really is. Biographers do not always give a full account of a subject but rather give us what they want us to believe about the person, they influence the way we think about a person. None of the three biographies speak badly of Barton for what she has done, but instead praise her work and show her importance. Still, while Ross and Pryor represent Barton as an angel, Burton reveals the more human side of Barton. .
All three biographies analyze the same event but approach it from different perspectives. It all began in 1893 when a hurricane struck the Sea Islands, and Clara Barton received a call to help the victims. Clara Barton, the woman behind the Red Cross, was sought out by the government to assist in restoring the damaged communities.
