Clara Barton: Pioneer, Reformer, and the Stories We Haven't Told

Clara Barton: Pioneer, Reformer, and the Stories We

Haven't Told

Dr. Chandra Manning

Professor of U.S. History at Georgetown University

Tuesday, August 25, 2026

3:00 p.m. Eastern Time

Most of us know Clara Barton as the founder of the American Red Cross — but her story is far richer and more surprising than that. Join us for this special webinar with Dr. Chandra Manning, historian and professor at Georgetown University, who will explore the full arc of Barton's extraordinary life: her work as a Civil War medical pioneer, her advocacy for women's rights, her leadership during catastrophic natural disasters, and much more. Dr. Manning will also share how her Georgetown history seminar partnered with the National Park Service to produce original research now shaping the future of the Clara Barton National Historic Site. This is a rare opportunity to see our founder in an entirely new light.

Chandra Manning is Professor of U.S. History at Georgetown University where she teaches classes on the Civil War, slavery and emancipation, Lincoln, baseball, the American Revolution, and more. Her first book, What This Cruel War Was Over: Soldiers, Slavery, and the Civil War (Knopf, 2007) won the Avery O. Craven Prize awarded by the Organization of American Historians, earned Honorable Mention for the Lincoln Prize and the Virginia Literary Awards for Nonfiction, and was a finalist for the Jefferson Davis Prize and the Frederick Douglass Prize. Her second book, Troubled Refuge: Struggling for Freedom in the Civil War (Knopf, 2016), won the Jefferson Davis Prize awarded by the American Civil War Museum.  At Georgetown, she has been the recipient of the Dean’s Award for Excellence in Teaching and the Gerald M. Mara Graduate Mentoring Award.  She is co-founder of Citizen Historians for the Smithsonian, a former National Park Service Ranger, and a forever Red Sox fan.

Register here: 

https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/Y7angx7LT_mN5AuRm1PntA