Clara Barton was a trailblazer who devoted her life to helping people in need, and who revolutionized disaster response in the process. But the national historic site where she once lived and worked is now in serious disrepair. After pushing back on a problematic renovation plan, a small group of dedicated historians is helping the National Park Service to honor her legacy more fully.
The Clara Barton National Historic Site in Glen Echo, Maryland, was the first national park site created to honor a woman and one of just 13 such sites across the country. Barton lived and worked in this corner of Maryland thanks to a unique partnership with a local arts institution known as Glen Echo Park, whose founders built the stately building to honor her as a celebrity in residence. It served as a multipurpose homestead and the American Red Cross headquarters during the last 15 years of Barton’s life.
But now, the building is in serious disrepair and in need of numerous upgrades. Ironically, the fruitful partnership between Barton’s site and Glen Echo Park led to an inappropriate plan that would have minimized Barton’s legacy. A team of historians banded together to improve the process and share the importance of this American hero, who devoted her life to serving others while breaking barriers and revolutionizing disaster response in the process.
This episode, host Jennifer Errick speaks with Liz Witherspoon, co-founder and CEO of the Clara Barton Fund and board member for the American Red Cross for Montgomery, Frederick and Howard Counties in Maryland; as well as Pam Goddard, senior program director for the Mid-Atlantic region at the National Parks Conservation Association. They discuss Clara Barton’s remarkable legacy, the state of her homestead and headquarters, the new group helping to preserve her history, and the puppet show concept that galvanized them to take action.
The Secret Lives of Parks is a production of the National Parks Conservation Association.
Episode 40, The Angel of Glen Echo, was produced by Jennifer Errick with help from Todd Christopher, Bev Stanton, Linda Coutant and Abbey Robertson.
Original theme music by Chad Fischer.
Learn more about this podcast and listen to the rest of our stories at thesecretlivesofparks.org. Hear about another inspiring woman who broke all kinds of glass ceilings in episode 35, The Woman Behind the Weekend, on the incomparable Frances Perkins. And listen to more about Pam Goddard and her work to preserve the Chesapeake Bay watershed in episode 24, The Beacon.
Podcast listeners can get a 10% discount at npca.org/store for just a few more days, until March 31, by using code PARKSPOD at checkout.
For more than a century, the National Parks Conservation Association has been protecting and enhancing America’s national parks for present and future generations. With more than 1.6 million members and supporters, NPCA is the nation’s only independent, nonpartisan advocacy organization dedicated to protecting national parks.
And we’re proud of it, too.
You can join the fight to preserve our national parks. Learn more and join us at npca.org
Episode 40
The Angel of Glen Echo
Jennifer Errick: Clara Barton was a trailblazer who devoted her life to helping people in need, and who revolutionized disaster response in the process. But the national historic site where she once lived and worked is now in serious disrepair. After pushing back on a problematic renovation plan, a small group of dedicated historians is helping the National Park Service to honor her legacy more fully.
I’m Jennifer Errick, and this is the Secret Lives of Parks.
[Break]
Before we begin our main story, I want to give a special shout-out to the listeners who have been writing us positive reviews, including Adele 123 on Apple Podcasts, who said, “Love this podcast. So much new information about our national parks. Each episode is so interesting.” That’s so cool. I’m so glad you’re enjoying our stories. And I got such a kick out of a comment on Spotify from rosazumbabodoh, who said, “Thank you for your msg supporting Ntl park employees! 🦖” with a dinosaur emoji at the end, about our episode on Dinosaur National Monument last month. Thank you for supporting federal workers.
I appreciate all of our listeners and supporters, and everyone at NPCA has been inspired by the sheer number of advocates who have been taking action on behalf of national park staff these past two months. Our efforts are making a difference. Earlier this month, a federal judge ordered that all National Park Service employees and other probationary federal workers who were fired on February 14 must be reinstated with back pay, though how many will want to return is an open question — and the Trump administration is asking the Supreme Court to intervene to prevent these federal workers from returning to their jobs. Worse, another expected reduction in force next month could once again bring indiscriminate mass firings to the entire Park Service and other federal agencies. Our next episode will address this ongoing staffing crisis in more detail.
In the meantime, thank you for standing up for the people who serve our country in thousands of ways. Our parks need them — we need them — and they deserve to keep doing the work they love. Let’s keep the pressure on!
Now, on to our main story.
[Break]
We’re nearly at the end of Women’s History Month, but I didn’t want these last few days of March to pass by without acknowledging a true American hero and a community of people who have been working to make sure her history is told with the accuracy and reverence she deserves.
Women make up more than half the population, but we are woefully underrepresented in the National Park System. Just a few months ago, we shared a story on the newest national park site created to interpret women’s history — the Frances Perkins National Monument in Maine, which is just the 13th site in the park system that was designated to interpret women’s history. That’s 13out of 433 national park sites across the country. This month, we’re heading to Montgomery County, Maryland, near Washington, D.C., to learn more about the very first national park site established to honor a woman — the Clara Barton National Historic Site.
This grand and storied homestead and former American Red Cross headquarters is just steps from a beloved community park known as Glen Echo, which was established in the 1800s as an institution promoting arts and culture. Clara Barton ended up in this corner of Maryland because the brothers who created Glen Echo Park invited her to be part of its mission — and it’s just one facet of the site’s remarkable history we’ll get into that remains relevant today. Barton spent the last 15 years of her life presiding over this nine-acre property that now stands worn and overgrown from the passing decades.
Liz Witherspoon: When you walk in, you can imagine, there would be people staying in the dormitories, there would be volunteers that were helping with disaster responses. There would be bustling. There would be assembling. There might be people calling on her. Many people came to ask for her support or to offer support, they were very senior people, they were very powerful people, up to Abraham Lincoln. She was very well known and very influential.
Jennifer Errick: Liz Witherspoon is co-founder and CEO of the Clara Barton Fund and a board member for the American Red Cross for Montgomery, Frederick and Howard Counties in Maryland. She was a frequent visitor to the Clara Barton National Historic Site before she began devoting her time to preserving it.
Liz Witherspoon: I was, over time, struck by the grandiosity and the significance of having Clara Barton’s final resting place and where she lived out and worked the last decade of her life but also one of the original headquarters of the American Red Cross. When she's at this site, she's in her 80s already. She's already had eight decades of impact.
Jennifer Errick: I knew it was later in her career, but wow, she had such a long career.
Liz Witherspoon: She really did. Just some highlights. She was one of the only women clerks at the U.S. Patent Office, before she founded the American Red Cross. My understanding is she was the first, and she was one of the only receiving a salary equal to the male clerks. So, she was an early advocate for equal pay. She then became involved in the Civil War and responding to the need for taking care of supplies and moving supplies to sites for the Civil War. She eventually cared for soldiers in makeshift hospitals and actually got passes to go to the front of the battlefield. So, she was very involved in caring for wounded soldiers, but it's important to know that she started out as, I think, an operational wizard, and understanding there was a need and that if she could solve some of that need, that would help in that effort.
Jennifer Errick: So, when she first started in her Civil War work, was she trained as a nurse, or did she become trained as a nurse later on? Because I had always assumed she started as a nurse.
Liz Witherspoon: She was never a nurse. She was never a trained nurse.
Jennifer Errick: Really? I didn't know that.
Liz Witherspoon: Yes, she has a nickname that many might equate with nursing. She was the “Angel of the Battlefield,” and she was helping on the front lines, aiding the wounded in the Battle of Antietam and many, many other locations, but she was not trained as a nurse. Truthfully, she was trained as a teacher, and she had actually started a school and was a founder there. She got that off the ground, until someone else came to run it, and that's when she left and went to the U.S. Patent Office. Then she saw, you know, that the war effort was in need of people's attention. That's when she took it on herself to bring food and supplies to the battlefield.
Jennifer Errick: Now, correct me if I’m wrong. I knew she had founded a school and that she had eventually left. Was there some sexism involved in that?
Liz Witherspoon: I would say with the school that she founded, once it was successful, they said this was a great success. Now it needs a leader. Now it needs a principal. And that must be a man. So, they gave the position to a man. Truthfully, I think that is something a lot of women can identify with today. And I think often about Michelle Obama's words, when they go low, I go high. I believe she had to go high several times to move on from some slights that were very, very disappointing and wounding, but she moved on. She was a reinventor. She was, I would say, very resilient and very good at identifying unmet needs.
So, she left the teaching job, left the school, went to the U.S. Patent Office, and then saw some of her students that came down as soldiers to fight in the Civil War. And then, that's what prompted her to get involved with the war effort. That was how she originally got her start, was supply delivery, which then later became actually tending to the wounded and helping operate these field hospitals in a sense, which then led to, when the war ended, her creating another organization called the Office of Missing Soldiers. She found another unmet need.
Once the war ended, people could not find their loved ones. Had they been killed? Had they been hurt? So, she started the Office of Missing Soldiers as a place to document every wounded or killed-in-action soldier, and people began to learn that she was carrying that list out, and then they were contacting her, and that became her next business venture — or not-for-profit, I should say. She did that in Washington, D.C., just half a block from the Capital One Arena.
Jennifer Errick: As a side note, the Capital One Arena is where hundreds of DC locals gather in bright red jerseys every winter to cheer on the Washington Capitals ice hockey team. It’s also just a couple of blocks from the National Parks Conservation Association’s main office. I didn’t realize this piece of Clara Barton’s history was just steps from the desk where I’ve worked for nearly 14 years.
Liz Witherspoon: It's been very well preserved. And it’s also a really, really cool story because that almost got demolished. There was somebody actually in there doing work to completely renovate the space. They reached up into the ceiling, and they found stuff, they pulled it down. It happened to be the sign that said the Office of Missing Soldiers, and then they pulled down ledgers that she had been writing the names of these soldiers in, and they discovered that this was a historic site. It's a wonderful place you can tour now.
So, she had, you know, three or four chapters prior to the American Red Cross. So, to your question, how is it that she was in her 80s by the time this 13,000-square-foot site for the headquarters was built? Well, it's because she had been doing on-the-ground disaster relief. She did most of it out of her home. She was one of the original home office workers.
She was very famous by the time she was in her late 80s — she was world famous. She had met presidents and diplomats and senators and common people across the whole country. She was friends with Frederick Douglass. She was friends with those that were fighting for women's rights. She was a very well-known person by the time she's at this age when this site was built. As she advanced in her age, she understood how to shine the light on other issues and how to use her platform to bring others as well into the light.
The reason she ended up at Glen Echo Park, Maryland, is that she was an attraction. So, let me explain on that. The Chautauqua Institute started in the late 1800s, out of New York. It was a place for people to convene and discuss religion and politics and literature and listen to music. They had amphitheaters, they had culture, they had arts. There was one in New York. It was very popular. It still stands today and operates just as it did in the 1800s.
The second one that was created was in Glen Echo Park, Maryland, and they invited her as, I would call it, a celebrity in residence, the way they currently have Las Vegas residencies. So, she said, you know, yes, I'll do it, but you have to build me the site of the American Red Cross headquarters.
Jennifer Errick: So, she became kind of the Wayne Newton or the Penn and Teller of Glen Echo?
Liz Witherspoon: That's right. That’s why it’s there. But I think it's important to know that the reason she has a 13,000-square-foot building that was not built by the American Red Cross is because she was invited as a celebrity in residence. That's how scrappy, I think, and good with negotiating she was. When she was able to get resources from somebody, she used it for the benefit of others. That's, to me, the throughline of everything she did.
And not without toll. She took some time off, for, we would probably consider it like PTSD, after being exposed to so much war, death, destruction and disaster. So, she had her times where she needed to recoup and take a break and needed to recharge and whatever was needed, but I think she was … using the resources she had, using grit and determination, using whatever she could get from others to solve a problem that had an unmet need, that was an unmet need that needed solving. No one else was going to do it, so she just did it. And then when people realized it was a great idea, sometimes they came and took it over and stole the idea, and I think she just moved on. That was her way of coping and her way of continuing was to stay busy, to never, never stop. She took breaks when she needed to, and she always found another challenge for herself.
Jennifer Errick: Coming up after the break, we hear more about the upcoming renovations at the national historic site, and how a group of dedicated historians took a bad plan and made it better.
Pam Goddard: They said, well, twice a year we'll have a blood drive. And we plan to have puppet shows — which I was appalled at. And so, I said, well, I know you also oversee the Robert E. Lee House. So, are we going to be seeing puppet shows there? Are we going to see Robert E. Lee and General Grant as puppets? Is that what you're telling us? And they weren’t too pleased with me. But I was not pleased with them.
Jennifer Errick: That’s coming up next. Stay with us.
[Music break with ad for npca.org/store]
When I spoke with Liz Witherspoon, I asked her what it’s like to visit the Clara Barton National Historic Site.
Liz Witherspoon: They designed it to be more like a firehouse, so when you walk in, it's a place that has an open atrium in the middle so that they can respond quickly to disasters. They modeled it off of their temporary housing after the Johnstown floods, which occurred shortly before they built the site. And they established temporary housing there, designed the model that they liked. When it was disassembled, they took the wood from it and brought it to the Clara Barton National Historic site and reused the wood to build the current building. And they designed it to be, like I said, an open atrium, so you could have dormitories on the second floor. You could hear people from top to bottom. You could assemble supplies quickly in storage closets built into the wall. Think more firehouse than historic home.
We try very, very carefully to call it a site or a building rather than a home because it does not appear at all like a home when you go in. Primarily it was a headquarters.
Jennifer Errick: I wanted to ask you what the best part is about being there in person.
Liz Witherspoon: One of the things I love is that you can walk around it. There are many people with their dogs playing in the park in front of it. There are kayakers parked to go to the river and go kayaking on the Potomac River. So, what impresses me about it is its size, the gravity of it. As you approach it and see how it sits up on the top of this hill, that it has the river rushing behind it. And there's a red stained glass red cross at the top in the top window from when it was built.
When you go inside, what impresses you as you walk in, as you walk in, there's a neat open atrium, but beautiful, beautiful wood, mouldings that look very lovingly polished. Floors that are lovingly polished by the National Park Service. Really deep storage closets built into the walls of the first entry, holding all kinds of supplies for disaster.
Jennifer Errick: Liz lives just a mile and a half from the national historic site and first learned about it on her regular visits to Glen Echo Park with her family.
Liz Witherspoon: So, I became curious about it because I walked around a lot, and like many others during the pandemic, I had a lot of time to walk, and I noticed something, which is that it was not in the best shape. It was actually in a pretty serious state of disrepair. The paint was peeling. The wood was rotting away. And what I kept thinking to myself was, with the importance of this site, of Clara Barton, why would this house not be a premier visiting place? So, I started to ask questions. What is the condition of the building, and when will it be repaired?
It was about ready to have a renovation. Congress had just approved a $15 million restoration. Many national historic sites, I learned, then have a friends group or a partner group or a foundation. That's how they end up being cared for by the community and cared for with a love and devotion that restores it to its most accurate and most authentic sort of condition.
Jennifer Errick: Liz stepped up to gather a board of directors for a new friends group, the Clara Barton Fund, and to serve as a spokesperson for the organization.
Liz Witherspoon: I felt that this should look like one of our most revered people in the history of our country. It should be like the home of a president. This is how important it is. With the LA fires, the first picture I saw had an American Red Cross blanket in response. With the flooding in North Carolina. Every day that we see something in the news, we're seeing the American Red Cross behind it. So, with that living history and this current-day impact, this site should capture that spirit and help push that forward, not be a relic of the past or have a state that's in disrepair.
Jennifer Errick: This group of enthusiasts and historians faced a challenge to preserving Clara Barton’s history, and it stemmed, ironically, from the long and fruitful partnership between the site and Glen Echo Park.
Pam Goddard: I've been to the Clara Barton site several times on my own personal interest. I brought my Girl Scouts, because she's such an amazing example of a woman who could do anything, especially back in the 1800s, where she was the first woman who worked at the Patent Office. The first woman who got paid as much as a man. I mean, she was a lot of firsts.
That’s Pam Goddard, senior program director for the Mid-Atlantic region at the National Parks Conservation Association. I asked her what kinds of renovations were needed at the Clara Barton site.
Pam Goddard: So, this is a building that was built in the 1800s, and it's not up to fire code. It's not up to Americans with Disabilities Act code. It needs basically new heating. It needs new plumbing. It needs new electrical. And it's also not up to code for the kind of storms that we see in our region. As time went on, the second and third floor had load-bearing issues, so they stopped letting people go up to the second and third floors. So, this was a fragile building that was well over 100 years old, and so it needed extensive renovation. Bringing that up to code, reinforcing some of the upper walls, making things accessible through doorways and through ramps, a small lift to get people up and down the flight. It needed a real big overhaul.
Jennifer Errick: How did you first become involved in this renovation process?
Pam Goddard: I actually heard from some women historians who emailed me and said, the Park Service is going to renovate the Barton site, and we think NPCA should be involved. So, I attended several of the meetings, and that's how we got involved back in 2022.
Jennifer Errick: And through that process, you really had an active hand in improving the design?
Pam Goddard: Yes. The Park Service, as we know, operates with severe budget issues. And so, what they've been trying to do is find partners who can help provide programming or might occupy part of the park and help pay some of the bills. And so, the George Washington Memorial Parkway, which oversees the Clara Barton National Historical Site, already had a partnership with the Glen Echo Performing Arts for Glen Echo, which is the neighboring park. So, they said, you know, we really need to have a partner here at the Clara Barton site. This site is going to be so expensive. We can save funding if we have a partner.
And then they had what they call a consulting party meeting where anyone who's interested in what's happening could come and hear about the plan. So, the plan they presented to us was very troubling because two-thirds of the building was turned over to Glen Echo Park. So instead of anything about Clara Barton or the American Red Cross, two-thirds of the rooms were costume storage, musical rehearsal rooms, catering kitchens. And so, I raised my hand in this meeting of 60 people and said, I'm confused. This park is dedicated to Clara Barton. Where is the interpretation and the honors to Clara Barton and her significance to our country?
And the Park Service staff said, well, we're going to share that in programming. We'll talk about Clara Barton in programming. And I said, well, what kind of programming? They said, well, twice a year we'll have a blood drive. And we plan to have puppet shows — which I was appalled at. And so I said, well, I know you also oversee the Robert E Lee House. So, are we going to be seeing puppet shows there? Are we going to see Robert E Lee and General Grant as puppets? Is that what you're telling us? And they weren’t too pleased with me. But I was not pleased with them.
And that evening, the superintendent called me, and he said, what is the problem? And I said, the problem is that you are diminishing the significance of Clara Barton to our country's history. I said, you could build buildings and buildings with her achievements and her contributions. And it appears that you're turning this over to a community arts center. That's not what this is all about.
So, we joined forces with the National Trust for Historic Preservation, the National Collaborative for Women's History, and a whole host of women historians who I've never worked with before. It was fascinating. They are amazing, amazing women. And we wrote very strong comments and said no, this is not acceptable. And so, they called us a month later and said, we're going to start over. We are going to make this about Barton. And we are thrilled because she was a woman of accomplishment, you could talk about her endlessly. And we wanted to have a good relationship with the Park Service. I mean, they did what they did because they have financial constraints, but that's not the answer.
Jennifer Errick: I should note that Liz Witherspoon was also quick to profess her love for Glen Echo Park and the longstanding partnership that brought Clara Barton to Maryland in the first place. The plan to offer puppet shows instead of more thoughtful interpretation wasn’t an issue of bad faith, she insists, but of needing more partners to help maintain the best focus. She formed the new friends group, with Pam’s help, to advocate for the park and keep these renovations — as well as future programming — in line with the site’s true mission. And Pam agrees the Park Service needs all the partners it can get.
Pam Goddard: They're under tremendous financial pressure, and the way we can help change their minds is to be helpful to them.
Jennifer Errick: And so now that you have helped steer this process, and this friends group is now being created to assist the Park Service, how do you hope this new space will be used?
Pam Goddard: So, the good news is that they will stay true to the building. They're gonna be very creative to keep the building as true as it is today as they modernize it. Second, we need to work with them and others to raise funds for the exhibits. So, a lot of Clara Barton's possessions are in storage by the Park Service. I and a graduate student, Rosie Click, who is part of this group, we had the honor of going to the American Red Cross headquarters, and they allowed us to go through the eight boxes of archives of Clara Barton.
So, there's things there which are wonderful. She was a prolific letter-writer, and there were some beautiful letters where she wrote people who were suffering from depression and said, I know today is dark, but tomorrow will be bright. We're looking at, where are all the artifacts and history that Barton wrote, and how can we help get some of those exhibited at the park?
That's our next big push, is supporting the park and then getting funding for the exhibits. And then finally, letting more people know about this park, because part of the problem is, the landscape, it's gotten overgrown. So, you don't even really know it's there. So, they're going to be doing some renovation of the landscape to restore the historic landscape so you know it’s there. Then they'll do joint signage that we weighed in on between Glen Echo Park and Clara Barton. So, if you go to Glen Echo Park to go dancing, there'll be signage to say, walk 500 yards, and you can learn about Clara Barton.
Jennifer Errick: Are there pieces of her history that particularly speak to you?
Pam Goddard: What was amazing about Barton was that she was way ahead of her time. She was not of wealth. She never married. But she demanded equal pay. She said, I’m not going to take a step backwards from my worth — and that was really important back then and pretty unheard of. And she worked relentlessly for change. She never rested. She was well into her 80s when she was getting on ships and going across the ocean to help with disaster relief in other countries, because people thought it had to be her, and she had a hard time saying no.
But then she went on to meet the leaders of the women’s suffrage movement. She met with leaders in equality for African Americans, and she embraced these other causes as well. So, in addition to her many, many, many accomplishments, she always looked at what else she could be doing, and she reached for all that she could do to help. She felt like her life of service was really important. The more I learn about her, the more I'm amazed. I mean, she modernized disaster relief. She'd load up the wagon and go. She got permission to go to active battlefields, and she would make sure people got fed, and they were clothed, and they had shelter, and she would raise money and give her own money away to make sure others were taken care of — and then convinced our country to make that a national priority.
Jennifer Errick: It is so remarkable. I share your feeling that the more I learn about her, the more fascinated I become, and what you were saying earlier struck a chord with me. You know, before she became this celebrity, when she was earlier on in her career, and I think not just the first woman in the U.S. Patent Office, she was one of the very first federal government employees, who was a woman.
Pam Goddard: Who got equal pay and demanded it.
Jennifer Errick: And she got equal pay and said, I will not accept less than I am worth. And you are here now saying the same thing, we will not accept, at this site, less than Clara Barton is worth. And that to me, just really brings it full circle, and your role in this, Pam, because you are also a trailblazer, and you are a fighter. And I love that you bring that spirit to this work.
Pam Goddard: I would just ask listeners to go to the site and to learn more about Clara Barton, because she was a phenomenal person, and it shows the power of what one person can do.
Jennifer Errick: Renovations to the Clara Barton National Historic Site begin in November, but visitors can tour the site on Fridays and Saturdays before then to learn more about her life of leadership and purpose.
“You must never so much think as whether you like it or not, whether it is bearable or not,” she once said; “you must never think of anything except the need, and how to meet it.”
[End theme]
The Secret Lives of Parks is a production of the National Parks Conservation Association.
Episode 40, The Angel of Glen Echo, was produced by me, Jennifer Errick, with help from Todd Christopher, Bev Stanton and Linda Coutant.
Original theme music by Chad Fischer.
Learn more about this podcast and listen to the rest of our stories at thesecretlivesofparks.org. You can hear about another inspiring woman who broke all kinds of glass ceilings in episode 35, The Woman Behind the Weekend, on the incomparable Frances Perkins. Listen to more of my colleague Pam Goddard and her work to preserve the Chesapeake Bay watershed in episode 24, The Beacon.
Podcast listeners can get a 10% discount at npca.org/store for just a few more days, until March 31, by using code PARKSPOD at checkout.
For more than a century, the National Parks Conservation Association has been protecting and enhancing America’s national parks for present and future generations.
And we’re proud of it, too.
You can join the fight to preserve our national parks. Learn more and join us at npca.org