19. Clara Barton, born December 25, 1821, under the sign of Capricorn
The influence of Capricorn on those born on Christmas Day is said to shape their personalities to be inclined to altruism. They are patient, persistent, and enjoy both learning and sharing what they have learned with others. They also lean toward being a controlling personality. All of those traits were present in the personality of Clarissa Harlowe Barton, the founder of the American Red Cross. Known as Clara, she was a schoolteacher during the antebellum period before taking a clerkship at the Patent Office in Washington, one of the first awarded to a woman at the time. Her political leanings led to her being fired during the Buchanan Administration.
Clara’s nursing training was self-taught. When the Civil War began, she dedicated herself to obtaining medical and nursing supplies for the Union armies. Her work as a nurse in the war is well-known; less so was her work towards discovery of the fate of missing men following the war. Barton and the assistants she hired (under the War Department) located more than 22,000 men. She also led the effort to identify the remains of more than 13,000 men who died at the notorious Andersonville prison. A trip to Europe brought the Red Cross to her attention, and in 1881 Barton presided over the first meeting of the American Red Cross, after years of leading the drive to make it a reality.