A Chronology
| 1821 | Clara Barton is born December 25 in North Oxford, Massachusetts |
| 1825 | John Quincy Adams becomes President; Erie Canal opens |
| 1829 | Andrew Jackson becomes President |
| 1830 | U.S. population is 12,866,020; Peter Cooper builds first U.S. locomotive |
| 1832 | Clara Barton nurses brother David back to health; Louisa May Alcott is born |
Louisa May Alcott
| 1834 | Cyrus McCormick patents reaper |
| 1835 | Sarah and Angelina Grimké become active abolitionists; Samuel Colt patents revolver |
Sarah Grimké
Angelina Grimké
| 1837 | Martin Van Buren becomes President |
| 1839 | Clara Barton begins teaching school in North Oxford and continues teaching for the next 11 years; Mount Holyoke, first college for women, opens |
Clara Barton as a schoolteacher
| 1841 | William Henry Harrison becomes President, dies April 4 and is succeeded by John Tyler |
| 1842 | Use of anesthetics begins in U.S. |
| 1844 | First telegraphic message sent by S.F.B. Morse |
| 1845 | James K. Polk becomes President; Margaret Fuller publishes Woman in the Nineteenth Century; Frederick Douglass publishes Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave |
| 1846 | Mexican War begins, ends in 1848 |
| 1847 | American Medical Association is founded |
| 1848 | First Women’s Rights Convention is held in Seneca Falls, New York |
| 1849 | Zachary Taylor becomes President, dies July 9, 1850, and is succeeded by Millard Fillmore; Elizabeth Blackwell becomes first woman to receive M.D. degree |
| 1850 | Clara Barton plans to enter Clinton Liberal Institute, Clinton, New York; Harriet Tubman begins helping slaves escape via Underground Railway |
Harriet Tubman
| 1851 | Clara Barton’s mother dies |
| 1852 | Clara Barton starts free school at Bordentown, New Jersey; Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin is published |
Harriet Beecher Stowe
| 1853 | Franklin Pierce becomes President; Singer sewing machine factory opens |
| 1854 | Clara Barton moves to Washington, D.C., and becomes clerk in Patent Office—at that time the only female employed by U.S. Government |
| 1857 | Battle of Solferino is fought June 24; James Buchanan becomes President |
| 1859 | Edwin Drake drills first oil well |
| 1860 | U.S. population is 31,443,321 (includes 3,953,760 slaves and 448,800 free blacks) |
| 1861 | Clara Barton begins aid to Union soldiers; Abraham Lincoln becomes President, is assassinated April 15, 1865, and is succeeded by Andrew Johnson; American Civil War begins with firing on Fort Sumter, South Carolina, and ends 1865 at Appomattox Court House, Virginia |
Union soldiers near Falmouth, Virginia
Abraham Lincoln
| 1862 | Clara Barton’s father dies; Un Souvenir de Solferino is published by Jean-Henri Dunant |
| 1864 | Clara Barton becomes supervisor of nurses for the Army of the James; Treaty of Geneva is signed, thereby establishing the International Red Cross |
| 1865 | Clara Barton works at Andersonville, Georgia, to establish national cemetery |
| 1867 | U.S. purchases Alaska; first practical typewriter is developed by Christopher Sholes |
| 1868 | Andrew Johnson is acquitted in impeachment proceedings; Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton begin publication of The Revolution |
Susan B. Anthony
Elizabeth Cady Stanton
| 1869 | Clara Barton begins travels in Europe that last until 1873, and meets Dr. Louis Appia of the International Committee of the Red Cross; U.S. Secretary of State Hamilton Fish rejects Treaty of Geneva; Ulysses S. Grant becomes President; first state board of health is established in Massachusetts |
| 1870 | Clara Barton works with Red Cross during Franco-Prussian War, which lasts until 1871 |
Grand Duchess Louise of Baden
| 1872 | Victoria Woodhull becomes first woman to run for U.S. President |
| 1873 | First school of nursing is established at Bellevue Hospital in New York City |
| 1874 | Clara Barton meets Julian Hubbell in Dansville, New York; Frances Willard founds Women’s Christian Temperance Union; electric streetcars begin running in New York City |
Julian Hubbell
| 1876 | Clara Barton collaborates with Susan B. Anthony on biographies of noted women; Alexander Graham Bell invents telephone |
| 1877 | Clara Barton begins correspondence with Louis Appia with goal of having U.S. ratify Treaty of Geneva; Rutherford B. Hayes becomes President |
Rutherford B. Hayes
| 1879 | Edison invents incandescent light bulb |
Drawing from Thomas Edison’s notebook, September 1879
| 1881 | Clara Barton founds American Association of the Red Cross, is elected president, establishes first local chapter of the America Red Cross at Dansville, New York, and aids victims of Michigan forest fires; James A. Garfield becomes President, is shot July 2, and is succeeded by Chester Arthur |
James A. Garfield
Chester Arthur
| 1882 | Clara Barton helps victims of Ohio and Mississippi river floods; U.S. Senate ratifies Treaty of Geneva, March 16, and ratification is proclaimed July 26 |
Steamboats left high and dry by floodwaters
| 1883 | Clara Barton serves for a short period as superintendent of Women’s Reformatory Prison in Sherborn, Massachusetts, and aids victims of tornadoes in Louisiana and Alabama |
| 1884 | Clara Barton assists survivors of Ohio and Mississippi river floods; International Red Cross adopts “American Amendment;” study of tuberculosis begins in earnest |
| 1885 | Ottmar Mergenthaler invents linotype machine; Grover Cleveland becomes President |
| 1886 | Clara Barton sends relief to Charleston, South Carolina, after earthquake |
| 1888 | Clara Barton organizes care of Jacksonville, Florida, yellow fever victims; George Eastman perfects hand camera |
| 1889 | Clara Barton works at Johnstown, Pennsylvania, flood scene; Benjamin Harrison becomes President; Jane Addams opens Hull House in Chicago; Mayo brothers open clinic in Rochester, Minnesota |
Jane Addams
| 1890 | U.S. population stands at 62,947,714 |
| 1891 | Clara Barton builds house at Glen Echo, Maryland |
The house at Glen Echo
| 1892 | Clara Barton organizes relief for victims of drought and famine in Russia |
| 1893 | Clara Barton sends relief to victims of Sea Island hurricane; Grover Cleveland becomes President; Lillian Wald establishes Henry Street Settlement House in New York City |
Lillian Wald
| 1895 | Röntgen discovers X-rays |
| 1897 | Clara Barton moves to Glen Echo; William McKinley becomes President, is shot September 6, 1901, dies September 14, and is succeeded by Theodore Roosevelt |
| 1898 | Clara Barton takes the Red Cross to the front lines during Spanish-American War, which lasts from April 11 to August 13, and publishes The Red Cross in Peace and War |
Red Cross ambulance used during the Spanish-American War
| 1900 | Clara Barton organizes relief for Galveston, Texas, after hurricane and tidal wave, and receives growing criticism for way she is managing the Red Cross; Federal charter granted to the American National Red Cross; Walter Reed discovers that mosquitoes transmit yellow fever |
| 1901 | Jean-Henri Dunant shares, with Frederic Passy, the first Nobel Peace Prize; Marconi transmits first radio signal across the Atlantic |
| 1902 | Arthur Little patents rayon |
| 1903 | Wright brothers fly their first airplane |
The first flight
| 1904 | Clara Barton resigns as president of the American National Red Cross; Mabel Boardman takes control until 1946 |
Mabel Boardman
| 1905 | Clara Barton forms the National First Aid Society |
| 1907 | Clara Barton publishes The Story of My Childhood |
At her desk in Glen Echo
| 1909 | William Howard Taft becomes President |
| 1912 | Clara Barton dies April 12 at Glen Echo at age 90 |
| 1915 | President Woodrow Wilson lays cornerstone for American National Red Cross headquarters in Washington, D.C. |
| 1963 | Friends of Clara Barton, Inc., purchases house at Glen Echo |
| 1974 | The U.S. Congress establishes on October 26 Clara Barton National Historic Site |
| 1975 | National Park Service assumes responsibility for Clara Barton National Historic Site |