| 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 |
