The Johnstown Flood Characters & Character Analysis

The Johnstown Flood Important People

Clara Barton

The 67-year old founder of the American Red Cross boards a special B&O train the day after the Johnstown disaster, leading a delegation of 50 doctors and nurses who over the next four months prove the American Red Cross's reason for being. Barton arrives a veteran of caring for soldiers in the American civil War and the Franco-Prussian War, running a women's prison, and helping victims of lesser natural disasters in Ohio, Texas, Illinois, and Florida get back on their feet. Barton sets up headquarters in an abandoned railroad car, orders hospital tents opened immediately, construction begun on six two-story wooden temporary "hotels" for the homeless, and conducts a door-to-door survey of the people's needs, which reveals widespread "melancholia." Barton is a tough New Englander who allows no one to tell her how to run her business. She works nearly around the clock and directs hundreds of volunteers distributing a...
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