Clara Barton, Professional Angel

By: Elizabeth Brown Pryor

Narrated by: Sheri Leigh Horn

Length: 19 hrs and 29 mins

Publisher's Summary

Widely known today as the "Angel of the Battlefield", Clara Barton's personal life has always been shrouded in mystery. In Clara Barton, Professional Angel, Elizabeth Brown Pryor presents a biography of Barton that strips away the heroic exterior and reveals a complex and often trying woman.

Based on the papers Clara Barton carefully saved over her lifetime, this biography is the first one to draw on these recorded thoughts. Besides her own voluminous correspondence, it reflects the letters and reminiscences of lovers, a grandniece who probed her aunt's venerable facade, and doctors who treated her nervous disorders. She emerges as a vividly human figure. Continually struggling to cope with her insecure family background and a society that offered much less than she had to give, she chose achievement as the vehicle for gaining the love and recognition that frequently eluded her during her long life.

Not always altruistic, her accomplishments were nonetheless extraordinary. On the battlefields of the Civil War, in securing American participation in the International Red Cross, in promoting peacetime disaster relief, and in fighting for women's rights, Clara Barton made an unparalleled contribution to American social progress. Yet the true measure of her life must be made from this perspective: she dared to offend a society whose acceptance she treasured, and she put all of her energy into patching up the lives of those around her when her own was rent and frayed.

The book is published by University of Pennsylvania Press. The audiobook is published by University Press Audiobooks.

©2011 University of Pennsylvania Press (P)2020 Redwood Audiobooks

Critic Reviews

"Destined to become an important reference work for years to come." (Washington Post) 

"Probing, thoughtful, fascinating, and beautifully written." (American Studies)

"Outstanding biography…Highly recommended." (Library Journal)

A Revealing Biography

This book was well written and meticulously researched. The book is long: 476 pages or nineteen and a half hours for an audiobook. Pryor wrote a scholarly account of Barton’s life.

Clara Barton is another example of a person who suffers from chronic anxiety-depression and used excessive work to control the systems of the depression. In doing this she achieved great things including the founding of the Red Cross. Barton was obviously an intelligent woman who found the constraints on the role of women confining. She became an activist to help expand the rights and roles of women. At times the book was a bit repetitive, otherwise, it was an informative read.

Sheri Leigh Horn does a good job narrating the book.

Thorough & interesting

I enjoyed this thorough & yet not ‘heavy’ account of a woman I came to know, only after reading the latest Florence Nightingale biography (sadly not yet on Audiobook).
My only criticism is that it makes judgements of CB’s personality too early in the book, before the listener has chance to see a pattern in her character & make their own mind up.