BGuthrie Photos: DC -- Penn Qtr -- Clara Barton’s Missing Soldiers Office (437 7th St NW)

DC -- Penn Qtr -- Clara Barton’s Missing Soldiers Office (437 7th St NW):

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Copyrights: All pictures were taken by amateur photographer Bruce Guthrie (me!) who retains copyright on them. Free for non-commercial use with attribution. See the [Creative Commons] definition of what this means. "Photos (c) Bruce Guthrie" is fine for attribution. (Commercial use folks including AI scrapers can of course contact me.) Feel free to use in publications and pages with attribution but you don't have permission to sell the photos themselves. A free copy of any printed publication using any photographs is requested. Descriptive text, if any, is from a mixture of sources, quite frequently from signs at the location or from official web sites; copyrights, if any, are retained by their original owners.

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Specific picture descriptions: Photos above with "i" icons next to the bracketed sequence numbers (e.g. "[1] ") are described as follows:
1. CBMSO_150214_35.JPG: Placed by Andrew Faye April 29, 1898
2. CBMSO_151031_005.JPG: The Shaw Letter: This is the letter that started a museum. This letter to Edward Shaw was found hanging from a broken piece of plaster in the ceiling. General Services Administration employee Richard Lyons found this letter, which led him to the attic where the Missing Soldiers Office signs were found.
3. CBMSO_151031_014.JPG: Personal Items: These items -- hair brushes, a tooth brush and tooth powder -- were part of Clara Barton's daily life while living in this space. The tooth powder container still has all of its original contents.
4. CBMSO_151031_029.JPG: Original signature of wallpaper hanger: E (illegible) Hoffman Aug. 28, 1913
5. CBMSO_151031_036.JPG: Original signature of a wallpaper hanger: "Papered by Andrew Frye April 29 1898"
6. CBMSO_151031_044.JPG: Man's Nightshirt A clothing item that is thought to have belonged to Edward Shaw.
7. CBMSO_151031_046.JPG: Slippers: These two slippers with leather soles and canvas uppers probably belonged to a man. Along with the boxes of items found in the attic which belonged to Clara Barton, there were boxes of items which belonged to her friend and landlord, Edward Shaw. These may have been his slippers.
8. CBMSO_151031_051.JPG: Personal Items: These are all personal items belong[ing] to Mr. Edward Shaw. Shaw was Clara Barton's landlord, friend, and occasional Missing Soldiers Office volunteer.
9. CBMSO_151031_073.JPG: Boarding House Items: These artifacts represent the daily life of the residents of the boarding house. Although famous for housing the Missing Soldiers Office, this building was primarily a residence and like the personal items we have today, each tells a story of the time in which they were used. All artifacts on display here were found in this building, and are owned by US General Services Administration.
10. CBMSO_151031_078.JPG: Gas Light Fixture: This light fixture is original to the building. Like the fixture on the ceiling behind you, it would have been attached to the gas line in the ceiling. The original glass shade is missing.
11. CBMSO_151031_099.JPG: Socks: Hundreds of socks, many of them blood stained, were found in the attic. It is believed that Barton and other volunteers were repairing the socks, laundering them, and then redistributing them to soldiers in need. These are bloody reminders of the men that Barton served.
12. CBMSO_151031_105.JPG: Bayonet Barton brought back a collection of "relics" from Andersonville prison in Georgia to serve as a reminder of the human suffering that took place. There was at least one bayonet in that collection. While research is ongoing to see if that is the origin of this bayonet, it was found in the attic and meant enough to Barton that she kept it.
13. CBMSO_151031_118.JPG: Sanitary Commission Tent: The Sanitary Commission was a non-governmental relief and medical oversight organization that operated during the Civil War. This extremely rare, rubberized tent half was used by the Commission and wound up with Barton. Two of these half tents were buttoned together to make a small shelter. Although seen in period advertising, this is the only extant rubberized half currently known to exist.
14. CBMSO_151031_127.JPG: This un-papered section of wall represents the possible original location of the hallway between the back bedrooms and the dining area. Research continues to add new details to our understanding of the space and how it evolved over time.
15. CBMSO_151031_149.JPG: Pen, Ink, Bottle and Cardboard Box: Office supplies like pens and ink were vital for Clara Barton's efforts here. The empty box originally contained cough lozenges, but was then used for office supplies.
16. CBMSO_151031_167.JPG: Missing Soldiers Office Sign This is the original sign that Clara Barton posted on the front of this building to advertise the Missing Soldiers Office. Note the nail holes in the corners of the sign.
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Description of Subject Matter: "I have an almost complete disregard of precedent, and a faith in the possibility of something better. It irritates me to be told how things have always been done. I defy the tyranny of precedent." -Clara Barton (1821 to 1912)

Clara Barton's life of service has been a role model for generations of nurses, teachers, social workers, doctors, and allied health professionals. A new generation of executives and public servants value the leadership and strong work ethic she exhibited with profound dedication to her cause. She cared little for personal comforts, instead choosing to comfort others.

In her time, Barton was called a philanthropist. Although that term today often connotes someone who has money and gives some of it to help others, in the 19th century it had a more direct meaning: one who for love of his fellow men exerts himself for their well-being. Her work during the Civil War is a striking example of true philanthropy: how one individual can make a difference in the lives of others.

"What she did in nursing is incredibly important and we don’t want to diminish that at all. But to say that Clara Barton is a nurse is a gross understatement of her importance. The fact is that she was a relief organizer at a time when women didn’t do that. At a time when women found that they had to get men involved in order to be taken seriously, Clara Barton bucked that system." George Wunderlich, Executive Director, NMCWM

Clara Barton’s Missing Soldiers Office was originally rediscovered by Richard Lyons of the General Services Administration (GSA) in 1996, when the building was scheduled for demolition. Located on 7th street, NW, Washington D.C., the site is the location where Clara Barton lived during and immediately after the Civil War. She used this property not only as a place to live, but also to store the supplies she received for her work on the battlefield, and later as an office to handle correspondence concerning missing soldiers.

In 1865 Barton ...More...
Bigger photos? To save server space, the full-sized versions of these images have either not been loaded to the server or have been removed from the server. (Only some pages are loaded with full-sized images and those usually get removed after three months.) I still have them though. If you want me to email them to you, please send an email to guthrie.bruce@gmail.com and I can email them to you, or, depending on the number of images, just repost the page again will the full-sized images.
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Same Subject: Click on this link to see coverage of items having the same subject: [Civil War] [Museums (History)] [National Museum of Civil War Medicine] [Display ALL National Museum of Civil War Medicine photos]
2015 photos: I retired from the US Census Bureau in god-forsaken Suitland, Maryland on my 58th birthday in May. Yee ha! Trips this year: a quick trip to Florida. two Civil War Trust conferences (Raleigh, NC and Richmond, VA), and my 10th consecutive San Diego Comic-Con trip (including Los Angeles). Ego Strokes: Carolyn Cerbin used a Kevin Costner photo in her USA Today article. Miss DC pictures were used a few times in the Washington Post. Equipment this year: I mostly used my Fuji XS-1 camera but, depending on the event, I also used a Nikon D7000. Number of photos taken this year: just over 550,000.
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