5. Clara Barton
[Image from Wikipedia]
During the American Civil War, the victims of the first bloodshed in the 1861 Baltimore Riot were transported to Washington, D.C. where Baron lived. She went to the railroad station where the victims were set to arrive and nursed 40 soldiers. She started to help the victims by taking supplies to the Capitol building where they were being housed.
Barton learned how to store and distribute medical supplies and offer emotional support to the soldiers while providing clothing, food and supplies for the sick and wounded soldiers. By mid-1862, Barton became a nurse on the front lines of the war. She distributed stores, cleaned field hospitals, applied dressings and served food to wounded soldiers.
After becoming mentally and physically exhausted after the war, Barton traveled to Geneva, Switzerland in 1869 where she met a doctor who asked her to be the representative for the American branch of the Red Cross. By the early 1880s, Barton had gained approval from President Chester A. Arthur to start the American Red Cross after explaining that it would be used for earthquakes, forest fires and hurricanes in addition to wars, according to The Life of Clara Barton, an early 20th century biography of Barton by Percy Harold Epler.
In 1881, Barton officially founded the American Red Cross, according to its website.
