Clara Barton
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"Clarissa Harlowe "Clara" Barton" was a pioneer nurse who founded the American Red Cross. In addition to being a hospital nurse, she worked as a teacher, patent clerk, and humanitarian. At a time when relatively few women worked outside the home, Barton built a career helping others. She was never married, as she knew the restrictions of a married woman at the time, but had a relationship with John J. Elwell. She was prominent as a nurse in the American Civil War.

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Economy, prudence, and a simple life are the sure masters of need, and will often accomplish that which, their opposites, with a fortune at hand, will fail to do.

This conflict is one thing I've been waiting for. I'm well and strong and young - young enough to go to the front. If I can't be a soldier, I'll help soldiers.

I may be compelled to face danger, but never fear it, and while our soldiers can stand and fight, I can stand and feed and nurse them.

The surest test of discipline is its absence.

An institution or reform movement that is not selfish, must originate in the recognition of some evil that is adding to the sum of human suffering, or diminishing the sum of happiness.

The door that nobody else will go in at, seems always to swing open widely for me.

I may sometimes be willing to teach for nothing, but if paid at all, I shall never do a man's work for less than a man's pay.

What could I do but go with them [Civil War soldiers], or work for them and my country? The patriot blood of my father was warm in my veins.

Others are writing my biography, and let it rest as they elect to make it. I have lived my life, well and ill, always less well than I wanted it to be but it is, as it is, and as it has been; so small a thing, to have had so much about it!