The story of my childhood

Clara Barton worked as a nurse for the Union forces during the American Civil War, often near the front lines. After the war, she assisted families in locating soldiers missing or killed in action. While traveling in Europe in 1869, Barton learned about the International Red Cross. Inspired by the volunteer organization that provided neutral aid during crises, she lobbied the United States government to organize the American branch of the Red Cross. She served as the president of the organization in 1881, and her influence galvanized the organization to assist with not just wars but natural disasters as well.

Female biography;

or, memoirs of illustrious and celebrated women, of all ages and countries

Mary Hays was a British feminist writer in the late-18th and early-19th centuries. Female biography chronicles the lives of 294 women from the ancient world to Hays’ contemporaries. Hays' feminist writing was controversial in her time. She was friends with radical thinker Mary Wollstonecraft, who wrote A vindication of the rights of woman, and her husband William Godwin. Hays took Wollstonecraft’s call for women’s rights to heart. As an unmarried woman, she moved out of her parent's home to her own. She also wrote poetry and novels that expressed her views on the second-class status of women in society, work that mainstream society viewed as too radical.