Clara Barton Research Paper

This investigation will explore the question: To what extent did Clara Barton’s service challenge society’s view of a woman? The scope of this investigation is over Clara Barton’s life specifically during her time in the Civil War (1861- 1865) and the impact that Clara Barton’s may have had during this time regarding the role of women in society. These sources will demonstrate how Clara Barton impacted society and changed the perception of women. They do this by providing insight into parts of Clara Barton’s life that are often not discussed and the implications of her actions on the entire Civil War society.

An important resource that was used was the book The Other Civil War: American Women in the Nineteenth Century. The origin of this
The accomplishments of Barton often were not things that were typically different from what an average woman was doing. Many of reasons for the changed viewpoint of women were the actions that many women accomplished rather than the actions of one person. In fact there were many other people during the Civil War were pioneering for rights of women. Such women through their actions in the medical field created a new avenue for other women to pursue a career in the medical field. It can be said that what changed the societal norms was not one person but a collective effort and was their own dedication in building up there position in society by starting to work. In antebellum society (pre-civil war) women did not work “outside the home”. In order for women to be taken seriously within society they needed to prove that they were capable of filling in for the men during the Civil War. By 1831 women comprised nearly forty thousand workers in the textile workforce. There were many more women working in industry rather than occupations such as nursing and teaching. Women establishing their place in positions that were typically filled by men helped to demonstrate what women could do. Many of the men thought that tending to the sick was a good job for women because it was just an extension of the role and experiences that a women had while tending to her family. Getting positions that men thought that women could not handle would have been an even stronger statement about the power of women. Taking the jobs that the men thought would be more appropriate for women would make an impact. With only 2,000 women in the nursing field and forty thousand in the textile industry, the industry would be more likely to demonstrate the importance of women in the work force and help change the perception of women, as they showed that there work was necessary. Clara Barton’s accomplishments may have inspired