1.

Record Nr.

UNINA9910827712303321

Autore

Pryor Elizabeth Brown

Titolo

Clara Barton : professional angel / / Elizabeth Brown Pryor

Pubbl/distr/stampa

Philadelphia : , : University of Pennsylvania Press, , 1987

ISBN

0-8122-0090-X

Edizione

[1st ed.]

Descrizione fisica

1 online resource (xv, 444 pages, 14 unnumbered pages of plates) : illustrations, portrait

Collana

Studies in Health, Illness, and Caregiving

Disciplina

361.7/634/0924

B

Soggetti

Nurses - United States

Lingua di pubblicazione

Inglese

Formato

Materiale a stampa

Livello bibliografico

Monografia

Note generali

Second paperback printing 1990.

Nota di bibliografia

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Nota di contenuto

Frontmatter -- Contents -- Preface -- Acknowledgments -- Clara Barton. Professional Angel -- One -- Two -- Three -- Four -- Five -- Six -- Seven -- Eight -- Nine -- Ten -- Eleven -- Twelve -- Thirteen -- Fourteen -- Fifteen -- Sixteen -- Seventeen -- Eighteen -- Abbreviations -- Notes -- Index

Sommario/riassunto

Widely known today as the "Angel of the Battlefield," Clara Barton's personal life has always been shrouded in mystery. In Clara Barton, Professional Angel, Elizabeth Brown Pryor presents a biography of Barton that strips away the heroic exterior and reveals a complex and often trying woman.Based on the papers Clara Barton carefully saved over her lifetime, this biography is the first one to draw on these recorded thoughts. Besides her own voluminous correspondence, it reflects the letters and reminiscences of lovers, a grandniece who probed her aunt's venerable facade, and doctors who treated her nervous disorders. She emerges as a vividly human figure. Continually struggling to cope with her insecure family background and a society that offered much less than she had to give, she chose achievement as the vehicle for gaining the love and recognition that frequently eluded her during her long life.Not always altruistic, her accomplishments were nonetheless extraordinary. On the battlefields of the Civil War, in securing American participation in the International Red Cross, in promoting peacetime disaster relief, and in fighting for women's rights, Clara Barton made an unparalleled contribution to American social



progress. Yet the true measure of her life must be made from this perspective: she dared to offend a society whose acceptance she treasured, and she put all of her energy into patching up the lives of those around her when her own was rent and frayed.