CLARA BARTON - AUTOGRAPH LETTER SIGNED 11/15/1905 - HFSID 175783

TO THE SECRETARY OF THE NATIONAL FIRST AID ASSOCIATION OF AMERICA
CLARA BARTON. Autograph Letter Signed: "Clara Barton", 1p, 8¼x11. Oxford, Mass., 1905 November 15. To Miss Kensel. On letterhead of "The National First Aid Association of America", listing officers including "CLARA BARTON President" and "MARY L. KENSEL Secretary". In full: "I inclose a letter from Mr. Clegg of Cleveland and if you will not find it too much trouble I would like some type copies of it for interested friends - such a spirit is for a lever for other loans - and there are scores of them that need only the lever to raise them. An active Editor with such a spirit is a valuable helper. It will not require very much to start an interest among the club women of New Jersey. They are a fine active body of women and very friendly. Do you begin to feel the cold a little in Boston? We get touches of it here, but bright days still. Of course the work programs for it must and Roscoe is well, for he cannot be otherwise. Love to all." Postscript: "Please let Mrs Reed have a copy of Mr Cleggs letter." The letterhead also lists ROSCOE G. WELLS as Assistant to the President and MRS. J. SEWALL REED as Vce-President. CLARA BARTON (1821-1912), who established the American Red Cross in 1881, served as its first President until 1904. In 1905, she founded the National First Aid Association, which taught first aid classes and developed the original first aid kits. In 1909, four years after this letter was written, first aid training became an essential function of the American Red Cross. Barton was born in Oxford, Massachusetts and she spent the last years of her life (from 1897) in her home in Glen Echo, Maryland, which had first been used as a Red Cross warehouse before becoming the headquarters of the organization and her living quarters). When she died in 1912 at age 91, her body was returned to Oxford for burial. Lightly creased and soiled. ½-inch tear in lower left corner. Pencil note (unknown hand) in blank upper left. Overall, fine condition.