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Women's History
The Civil War
(1861-1865)

Clara Barton

Clara Barton
Reading Level
     edHelper's suggested reading level:   high interest, readability grades 4 to 6
     Flesch-Kincaid grade level:   4.73

Vocabulary
     challenging words:    salary, wartime, schooling, identify, organization, education, outbreak, born, teaching, childhood, death, supplies, public, army, battle, natural
     content words:    Clara Barton, New York, New Jersey, Civil War, Red Cross, United States, Spanish-American War

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Clara Barton
By Cathy Pearl 		  
1     Clara Barton was born on December 25 in 1821. She was the youngest of five children. She was a quiet, shy child. Her childhood gave no hint of the strong woman that she would become.
 
2     She became a teacher in Massachusetts when she was seventeen. After teaching for several years, she decided she wanted more education. She had a year of formal schooling in New York. She then started teaching in New Jersey.
 
3     Clara worked at a school where the parents paid for her salary. Only parents with enough money could send their child to the school. One day, on her way to work, Clara saw many children standing out on the streets. The parents of the children could not afford to send them to school.
 
4     Clara offered to teach for free if she was given a building. The first day, fewer than ten students came. The next day there were more than twenty. In a year, there were hundreds of students at the school. It was the first free public school in New Jersey.

Paragraphs 5 to 15:
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