under which all who wore the badge of their society were allowed to go on the battlefields to care for the wounded. Miss Burton had not heard of the society, although its principles were familiar to her from her service in connection with the Sanitary Commission. The society was the Society of the Red Cross. Miss Barton was at once interested in it and began to advocate its extension to cover the United States. In 1870. while she was in Heme, the war between France and Prussia broke out. Within three days Miss Barton was asked, by Dr. Appia, one of the founders of the Red Cross Society to go to the front and assist in caring for the wounded. Although herself an invalid, she went with her French companion, the "fair-haired Antoinette." and the two women were admitted within the lines of the German army. They there served after the battle of Hagenau, and Miss Barton realized the enormous value and importance of the Red Cross work, in having supplies of all
CLARA BARTON.
sorts ready and trained help to do everything required to save life and relieve suffering. Returning to Berne. Miss Barton was called to the Court in Carlsruhe by the Grand Duchess of Baden, who wished her to remain with her and give suggestions concerning relief measures. She remained in Carlsruhe until the siege of Strasburg, and. when the gates of that city at last opened to the German army. Miss Barton entered with the soldiers. For her services she received a Red Cross brooch from the Grand Duchess of Baden, the Gold Cross of Remembrance with the colors of the Grand Duchy of Baden from the Grand Duke and his wife, and the Iron Cross of Merit with the colors of Germany and the Red Cross from the Emperor and Empress of Germany. Everywhere in the ruined cities Miss Barton did most valuable work. In Paris, in the closing days of the Commune, she did much work. Monsieur Thiers himself honored her in signal ways, and she was debarred from receiving the cross of the Legion of Donor only by her refusal to solicit it, as, according to the laws
governing its bestowal, it must be solicited by the would-be recipient. In 1873, utterly broken in health, she returned to the United States, and for several years she was unable to do any work. As soon as she was able to do so, she began to urge the Washington government to accept the Geneva treaty for the Red Cross Society. President Garfield was to have signed the treaty, but his untimely death prevented, and it was signed by President Arthur in 1882. In 1877 an "American National Committee of the Red Cross" was formed in Washington, and it was afterwards incorporated as "The American Association of the Red Cross." Miss Barton was appointed to the presidency by President Garfield, and she has since devoted herself to carrying out its benevolences. In the United States Miss Barton's society has done noble work among the fire sufferers in Michigan, and flood sutlerers in Louisiana, Mississippi and Johnstown, Pa. During 1891 and 1892 the society worked for the famine sufferers in Russia, the American branch having made large collections of food and money for that purpose. In 1883 Miss Barton was appointed superintendent of the Reformatory Prison for Women in Sherburne, Mass., and she divided her time between that work and the work of the Red Cross. She has made that beneficent organization known throughout the United States by its services in times of Buttering from fire, flood, drouth, tempest and pestilence. Miss Barton is spending her years in Washington, D. C., where, as a central sun, she diffuses energy, radiance and vitality throughout her world of philanthropy and of noble endeavor. Her long years of arduous labor have left their marks upon her, but she is still in the ranks, doing good service in the present and planning greater for the future.
BASCOM, Mrs. Emma Curtiss, woman suffragist and reformer, born in Sheffield, Mass., 20th April, 1828. She w as the second daughter of Orren Curtiss. From earliest childhood she found occasion for that domestic watchfulness and care-taking that have marked her later life. New England ancestry and New England associations gave the in distinct quality and color to her childhood. She was, through her mother. Caroline Standish Owen, a direct descendant of Miles Standish. Her early education was received in the Great Barrington Academy, in Pittsfield Institute, Massachusetts, and in Patapsco Institute, Mary land. Entering at once the one open vocation for women, that of instruction, she became a teacher in Kinderhook Academy, New York, and later in Stratford Academy, Connecticut. In 1856 she was married to John Bascom, at that time professor in Williams College, For years her husband was wholly deprived of the use of his eyes, and she thus had occasion, during a long period, to share his studies and render him daily assistance in reading and writing. She became the mother of five children and cherished a lively interest in all that pertained to the discipline, amplitude and pleasure of the home. My native tendency and life-long habit she has been an interested observer and eager advocate of those marvelous changes which have, in the rapid movement of recent years, opened the doors of opportunity to woman in the social, economic and political world. Her sense of the inner fitness and reconstructive power of this transformation of sentiment concerning the true relation of man and woman to each other has been deep, untiring and most sanguine. She was a charter member of the Association for the Advancement of Woman and for many years was one of its board of officers.
