Clara Barton Museum

Special Exhibition - "War On Our Doorsteps"
2018-03-01 11:00 - 2018-03-03 17:00 (America/New_York) | Clara Barton Missing Soldiers Office Museum, 437 7th Street NW, Washington, 20004, United States
When Alexander Gardner’s stunning photographs of the Antietam battlefield were publicly displayed in 1862, they changed how Americans saw war forever. For a limited time, you can relive that sobering exhibition at the Clara Barton Missing Soldiers Office.
A photograph captured in the aftermath of the Battle of Antietam by Alexander Gardner. (LOC)
On March 1, 2018, the acclaimed exhibition “The Dead of Antietam” will return to the Clara Barton Missing Soldiers Office in Washington, DC. The exhibit recreates and explores the original photographs taken in the days after the bloodiest day in American history, the Battle of Antietam, on September 17, 1862. When the photographs were first publicly displayed by Mathew Brady in New York in 1862, they shocked a nation and showed the true nature of warfare – the anonymous dead laying row upon row on an American landscape.
“Mr. Brady has done something to bring home to us the terrible reality and earnestness of war,” wrote the New York Times after the original exhibition began in October 1862. “If he has not brought bodies and laid them in our dooryards and along the streets, he has done something very like it.”

Captured by Washington photographer Alexander Gardner, the images changed the perception of war in the United States and continue to reverberate in our own era as we grapple with human consequences of the continuing conflicts around the world. Now you, too, can experience the images that once captivated and horrified a nation in a 19th century setting. The exhibit proves that history repeats itself as it provokes discussion on today’s military censorship of visual images of bodies and casualties returning from war zones.

Visiting the exhibition is included with admission to the Clara Barton Missing Soldiers Office Museum and is free for Museum members. The exhibition will be on display at the Missing Soldiers Office from March 1, 2018 until May 19, 2018 and will be available during normal operating hours (11:00am – 6:00pm, Thurs-Sat) and by appointment. Contact Reservations Coordinator Katie Reichard for more information about appointments and group visits: katie.reichard@civilwarmed.org or 301-695-1864.

The exhibit restages the original photographic images, allowing visitors to experience what viewers did more than 155 years ago. Display prints have been made to the same dimensions and style of the originals from high-definition Library of Congress digital files. To enhance the visitor’s experience, there will be a 3-D theatre to view the photos, which were shot with stereoscopic cameras, in the way they were originally intended.

Visitors will explore how American society portrayed death at the start of the Civil War, how these photos were received in 1862, and how the coverage of war has evolved since the publication of Gardner’s images into the present day. “The Dead of Antietam” exhibition at the Missing Soldiers Office was created by Bob Kozak.

Gardner’s studio was also an integral part of Clara Barton’s everyday life during the Civil War. Located one block from Barton’s boardinghouse on 7th Street, the studio became a hub of war-time activity as Gardner experimented with new photographic techniques and sold copies of his photographs. Like Gardner, Barton was also on the battlefield at Antietam and witnessed its slaughter firsthand.

For more information about the exhibition, contact Jake Wynn at jake.wynn@civilwarmed.org.

Section 27: Separated at Death in Arlington
2018-02-15 18:00 - 19:00 | Clara Barton Missing Soldiers Office Museum, 437 7th Street NW, Washington, 20004, United States
Uncover the history of Arlington National Cemetery’s historic Section 27 and what it tells us about race and healthcare during the 19th century.
Researchers Ric Murphy and Timothy Stephens will explore the history of slavery and healthcare at America’s most famous cemetery at the Clara Barton Missing Soldiers Office on Thursday, February 15 at 6 PM.
The presentation will focus on the medical care provided to African American civilians on the former plantation of Robert E. Lee and their changing social status during and after the Civil War.
This presentation is pay-what-you-please.
Ric Murphy is an educator, historian and noted author of several historical publications. His numerous lectures and speaking engagements explore the varied roles of African Americans in United States history. His future publications will continue to explore the colonial, Reconstruction, and twentieth century periods, and their impact on today’s African American communities. Murphy holds an undergraduate degree from the University of Massachusetts, a graduate degree from Boston University, and was a Senior Executive Fellow at Harvard University, Kennedy School of Government.
Timothy Stephens is a historian and a national expert in public health and emergency preparedness. He has been a national public health leader and commentator for more than twenty years. He writes a weekly column advising risk managers on public health threats.Stephens has a Master’s degree in Communications from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Journalism, and an undergraduate degree in Film and English from the University of Warwick, England.

Clara Jones: A Forgotten Civil War Nurse
2018-01-27 11:00 - 12:00 | Clara Barton Missing Soldiers Office Museum, 437 7th Street NW, Washington, 20004, United States
Discover the story of Clara Jones, a full-time teacher whose remarkable wartime experiences included assisting the wounded aboard a hospital ship, and at hospitals in Alexandria, Virginia, and at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania.

Historian John Lustrea will tell the story of forgotten Civil War nurse Clara Jones at the Clara Barton Missing Soldiers Office Museum on January 27 at 11 AM.
Since entering the public record in 2003 when Clara Jones’ letters were donated to the museum, very few have read them. They tell an incredible tale of sacrifice and compassion. Jones was an unmarried 28 year old single woman when the Civil War broke out. While she wanted desperately to rush to the front to comfort sick and wounded soldiers, she needed the pay of her full-time teaching job to support herself. That did not stop her from traveling to the front on school breaks of any length. Come hear about her amazing efforts.
John Lustrea is the blog editor and website manager at the National Museum of Civil War Medicine. He received his MA in Public History from the University of South Carolina, Columbia. John spent four summers working at Harpers Ferry National Historical Park as a seasonal ranger.

A Civil Life in an Uncivil Time
2017-12-14 18:00 - 19:00 | Clara Barton Missing Soldiers Office Museum, 437 7th Street NW, Washington, 20004, United States
In October 1862, Julia Wilbur traveled alone from Rochester, New York, with the well-intentioned, but ill-formed idea to help African Americans escaping slavery by crossing into Union controlled areas. She ended up in Alexandria, Virginia, where she worked closely with Harriet Jacobs and against the male powers-that-be.
Join us at the Clara Barton Missing Soldiers Office on Thursday, December 14 at 6 PM as author Paula Tarnapol Whitacre discusses her research into the Civil War experiences of Julia Wilbur.
A Civil Life in an Uncivil Time: Julia Wilbur’s Struggle for Purpose is the first biography about this unheralded, but remarkable woman. Using Wilbur’s diaries and other primary sources, Whitacre traces how Wilbur took this bold step and what she accomplished when she came south. After the war and until her death in 1895, Wilbur lived in Washington, following in the footsteps of Clara Barton (whom she knew) by working in the Patent Office and fighting for women’s rights.
Whitacre is a writer and editor who has lived in Alexandria since the mid-1980s. A graduate of Johns Hopkins University, she worked at The Washington Post and as a Foreign Service Officer earlier in her career. She is on the boards of Friends of Alexandria Archaeology and the Civil War Roundtable of Washington, DC.
This is a pay-what-you-please event.
Pre-Register Now

Cut It Off! A Halloween Amputation Demonstration
2017-10-21 19:00 - 21:00
Join the Obscura Society as we get into the Halloween spirit and turn the Clara Barton Missing Soldiers Office into an impromptu operating theater!
We’ll watch a Civil War medical historian from the National Museum of Civil War Medicine amputate a gel leg using authentic 19th-century tools and techniques. The leg, made from foam and simulated bone, looks, feels, and even sounds (!) remarkably like the real thing. Inspired by the creepy (and fictional) Case of George Dedlow, we’ll also discuss spiritualism and seances in the nineteenth century.
Museum staff will also bring some bone saws, miné balls, medical kits, and other objects related to the history of amputation for us to look at. They will be on hand to answer your questions about surgery in the pre-antiseptic, pre-antibiotic era.
ADDITIONAL DETAILS

The event costs $30. The event requires advance tickets only, and all sales are final. There will be no refunds or exchanges. Buy your tickets here
This location is easily accessible via bus and Metro’s red, yellow, and green lines. For more information on getting to the museum, click here.
Metered street parking is available but can be extremely difficult to find. If you plan to drive, please give yourself ample time to locate parking in the area around the Verizon Center.
Photographs are encouraged (but flash photography is not allowed).
This adventure is PG (it’s gonna be gory).
A portion of the ticket sales will be donated to the National Museum of Civil War Medicine.
Share photos on Twitter and Instagram with us @atlasobscura, and @ClaraBartonMSO using the hashtag #ObscuraSociety!

QUESTIONS?
Contact Ashley at ashley.bowen@atlasobscura.com.

Women Soldiers
2017-08-26 11:00 - 12:00 | Clara Barton Missing Soldiers Office Museum, 437 7th Street NW, Washington, 20004, United States
Over four hundred women disguised themselves as men and fought in the American Civil War. They stood side by side with male soldiers, staring down gruesome and bloody fighting. Learn their stories.
Dr. Audrey Scanlan-Teller and Tracey McIntire are scholars of Civil War history, as well as celebrated living historians. They will introduce you to the incredible women who fought in the American Civil War.
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Clara Barton's Associates
2017-07-13 18:00 - 19:30 | Clara Barton Missing Soldiers Office Museum, 437 7th Street NW, Washington, 20004, United States
Clara Barton worked tirelessly to help soldiers and their families before and after the American Civil War … but she didn’t do it alone.

Clara Barton’s network was extensive: from privates to generals, Congressmen and clerks, and more. A panel of researchers will introduce you to a few of these figures and how they helped or hindered Barton.

Pre-register Today

Independence Day
2017-07-04 11:00 - 17:00 | Clara Barton Missing Soldiers Office Museum, 437 7th Street NW, Washington, 20004, United States
Harper’s Weekly Illustration of 4th of July, Courtesy of Son of the South
Celebrate the 4th of July by celebrating the men and women that helped shape this nation through service and sacrifice.
In honor of Independence Day, regular admission fees to the Clara Barton Missing Soldiers Office Museum will be waived. We will instead offer “Pay What You Please” admission (suggested donation $5.00 per person).
Explore the rooms where Clara Barton lived and worked: helping wounded soldiers and spearheading the search for the missing after the Civil War.

Memorial Day Weekend
2017-05-26 - 2017-05-29 | Clara Barton Missing Soldiers Office Museum, 437 7th Street NW, Washington, 20004, United States
As we commemorate Memorial Day weekend, tour the Missing Soldiers Office during our special holiday hours and explore how Clara Barton helped soldiers and their families during and after the American Civil War.
The Museum will be open from 11:00 am to 6:00 pm Friday through Monday with last admission at 5:00 pm. Admission will be pay what you please. Please join us!

Seeking Asylum
2017-05-11 18:00 - 19:00 | Clara Barton Missing Soldiers Office Museum, 437 7th Street NW, Washington, 20004, United States
Securing Care for Mentally Ill African Americans After the Civil War
One of the biggest challenges facing the post Civil War south was the vast number of African Americans who required medical care. The majority of established hospitals were reluctant to accept them as patients, and those that suffered from mental illness faced the greatest amount of discrimination. Historian Craig Swenson will discuss how the Freedmen’s Bureau established a system of hospitals to handle this growing need and how a former Confederate hospital in Richmond became one of the world’s first asylums dedicated solely to the treatment of African American patients.
Craig Swenson holds a Bachelor’s Degree in history from the University of Baltimore and currently completing his Master’s Degree in Museum Studies at the Harvard University Extension School. His research deals with medical and architectural history with a focus on mental health. He is currently employed at the National Building Museum where he most recently worked on The Architecture of an Asylum, an exhibition on St. Elizabeth’s Hospital. He is also an intern at the Museum.
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Washington, D.C.’s ‘Working Girls’
2017-05-06 11:00 - 13:00 | Clara Barton Missing Soldiers Office Museum, 437 7th Street NW, Washington, 20004, United States
Step into Clara Barton’s Missing Soldiers Office for a discussion about Washington, D.C.’s 19th century working women: government clerks, humanitarians, and prostitutes.
While we explore the Missing Soldiers Office, we’ll learn about the many women who made Washington, D.C., work. Museum staff will share stories about exceptional women such as Clara Barton, who worked first as a clerk in the United States Patent Office and then as a tireless humanitarian. We’ll also hear about women who went to work in the offices of U.S. government agencies and the many unnamed women who worked as prostitutes in Washington, D.C.
Museum staff will share a selection of artifacts and prints relating to women’s work, including nineteenth-century office supplies and historic condoms and STI treatments.
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Troubled Refuge
2017-04-20 18:00 - 19:00 | Clara Barton Missing Soldiers Office Museum, 437 7th Street NW, Washington, 20004, United States
By the end of the Civil War, nearly half a million slaves had taken refuge behind Union lines, in what became known as “contraband camps.” These refugee camps were crowded, dangerous places, yet some 12-15 percent of the Confederacy’s slave population took almost unimaginable risks to reach them, and they became the first places many Northerners came to know former slaves en masse.
Ranging from stories of individuals to those of armies on the move to the debates in Congress, Dr. Chandra Manning will explore what the camps were really like and how former slaves and Union soldiers warily united there to help end slavery, win the war, and forge a new version of citizenship that would matter not just for former slaves, but for all Americans.
Dr. Chandra Manning is an accomplished historian and author of Troubled Refuge and When this Cruel War Was Over. She graduated summa cum laude from Mount Holyoke College in 1993 and received the M.Phil from the National University of Ireland, Galway, in 1995. She took her Ph.D. at Harvard in 2002. Manning has taught history at Pacific Lutheran University in Tacoma, Washington, and was Associate Professor of History at Georgetown University. Currently, she serves as Special Advisor to the Dean of the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard University.
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Weeping No More
2017-04-13 18:00 - 19:00 | Clara Barton Missing Soldiers Office Museum, 437 7th Street NW, Washington, 20004, United States
Southern Black Women and the U.S. Pension Bureaucracy
This talk will explore how southern black women artfully navigated the U.S. pension bureaucracy to gain recognition as Union widows. Based on her extensive research of black soldiers’ wives and widows at the National Archives, Dr. Brandi Brimmer will reconstruct the pension application process and evidentiary obstacles newly freed black women faced in their attempt to claim and maintain their position on the pension roster. Over the course of the presentation, she will demonstrate how these women utilized the U.S. pension bureaucracy to air their grievances and remake widowhood on their own terms.
Brandi C. Brimmer is a historian of African Americans in the United States with a particular interest in women/gender, racial formation, and sexuality in late-nineteenth-century America. Her book-in-progress analyzes black women’s relationship to the U.S. legal system and to federal institutions in post-Civil War America. Brimmer’s articles have appeared in the Journal of the Civil War Era and the Journal of Southern History. She is an assistant professor in the Department of History and Geography at Morgan State University. Her talk this afternoon will explore the life, labors, and travails of black women who had to artfully negotiate the U.S. pension bureaucracy to gain legal recognition as a Union widow.
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Saving Clara Barton's Missing Soldiers Office
2017-04-05 18:00 - 19:00 | Clara Barton Missing Soldiers Office Museum, 437 7th Street NW, Washington, 20004, United States
On Wednesday, April 5, 2017, at 6:00 PM, the Clara Barton Missing Soldiers Office Museum will welcome Caroline Alderson and Elizabeth Hannold of the United States General Services Administration’s National Preservation Program for a behind-the-scenes journey through the discovery, investigation, restoration and interpretation of the boarding house where Clara Barton lived and worked in the 1860s. See how original components and fragments were integrated into replicated Civil War era gaslighting, building systems and wall coverings found in the third floor rooms. Probe clues to unsolved mysteries –hidden openings, graffiti notations, shifted passageways—peering into view portals and exposure “windows” for a compelling glimpse into Barton’s Civil War refuge.
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Clara Barton - An American Life
2017-03-23 18:00 - 19:00 | Clara Barton Missing Soldiers Office Museum, 437 7th Street NW, Washington, 20004, United States
Exploring the incredible life and career of an American icon.
How did a shy girl born on a New England farm in 1821 break through the barriers that so often confined women to the domestic sphere? How did she go on to have a sixty year career of public service that touched people all over the world? How did she found the American Red Cross, an organization that still helps people in need today? And what gave this woman the courage to go where the fighting was taking place during the American Civil War, a place women did not go?
This illustrated talk by Kevin Patti from Clara Barton National Historic Site will use photographs from Clara Barton’s life and times to answer these questions and describe the development of her remarkable career. The talk will also describe Miss Barton’s legacy as an advocate for the expansion of rights for African Americans and women. The audience will learn of her role as a pioneer of emergency preparedness, First Aid and natural disaster relief work, as well as public education in New Jersey.
Kevin Patti, a twenty year veteran of the National Park Service, has served as a Park Ranger at Clara Barton National Historic Site since 2005. At the request of the State Department in 2012 he traveled to Armenia to speak about Clara Barton and the relief effort she lead in 1896 to help Armenians who were affected by massacre. He has been featured on CSPAN leading a tour of Clara Barton National Historic Site. Mr. Patti has also worked at Glen Echo Park in Maryland, Great Falls Park in Virginia, Theodore Roosevelt Island and the Old Post Office Tower in Washington, DC.
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The Widow Maker: How the Pension Office Forced Women to Fight for Survival After the Civil War
2017-03-09 18:00 - 19:00 | Clara Barton Missing Soldiers Office Museum, 437 7th Street NW, Washington, 20004, United States
After the Civil War, thousands of women were left to care for their wounded warriors. These women walked a tightrope between independent decision-making and technical dependence on their invalid male relative. Dr. Ashley Bowen shares the story of one such family and the matriarch’s fight for survival, independence, and justice.
This is part of our “After the War” series. Once a month, speakers will explore how citizens fought to rebuild their lives after the Civil War.

When soldiers went marching home, there was no support system in place to care for their physical or psychological wounds. Instead, the Pension Office provided varying amounts of financial support to each soldier, and expected the women of the house to handle everything else.
The wives of Civil War soldiers were responsible for the “women’s work” of nursing their veterans—shaving their veterans, helping them eat, and bathing them—while also taking on many of the responsibilities that defined a nineteenth century father and husband, including manual labor, financial decision making, and farm management.
When their husbands died, many of these women were told they would not receive their widow’s pension. According to the War Department, by caring for their husbands, the women had proven themselves too independent to need financial assistance.
This talk will focus around one of these women: Virginia Bedor. Her husband, Peter Bedor, fought as private in the 1st Connecticut Heavy Artillery, was arrested for mutiny, fought at Gettysburg, witnessed the fall of Petersburg, and had been treated for acute mania at the Government Hospital for the Insane. Over the course of their nearly forty-year marriage, Virginia raised nine children; nursed her now ill, violent, and temperamental husband; became Peter’s legal guardian; negotiated her husband’s care in jails and asylums; stewarded a Kansas farm to a degree of profitability; and navigated a complicated bureaucratic system to obtain a pension for her husband. When she applied for a widow’s pension after Peter’s death in 1904, the Pension Office refused her request on the grounds that her success as a guardian, farmer, and manager rendered her no longer dependent.
The Bedor’s story, like all family stories, is unique but by no means exceptional. Their correspondence with the Pension Office reveals how late nineteenth century American women negotiated gender relations inside and outside the home, the expansion of asylums and soldier’s homes, and shifting government narratives of the ‘deserving poor.’
Bowen’s research into the Bedor family provides a window into the shifting gender and social service landscape of post-Civil War America. Virginia Bedor’s fight with the pension office makes clear the ways in which the United States federal government’s policies demanded that women present themselves as dependent, deserving widows and incapable of providing for themselves without the aid of a husband or father—regardless of her own success as a caregiver, farmer, and business woman.
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CANCELLED: Oh Freedom!
2017-02-25 16:00 - 17:30 | Clara Barton Missing Soldiers Office Museum, 437 7th Street NW, Washington, 20004, United States
CANCELLED
I woke up this morning with my mind set on Freedom …
Ain’t gonna let nobody turn me round …
We shall overcome, we shall overcome someday …
The songs of the Civil Rights movement sustained foot soldiers through long nights in prison and tense marches and sit ins. The music acted as a “singing newspaper”–carrying news of the movement across the country, from college campuses to community churches. Today, the music of the movement continues to echo in our ears, teaching us about the past while driving us forward.
Award winning Illinois folksinger, Chris Vallillo will sing and share the pivotal songs that inspired and sustained this landmark movement. Discover the historic and singing roots of the long Civil Rights movement.

Episode 2: Mercy Street Viewing Party
2017-02-02 18:00 - 19:15 | Clara Barton Missing Soldiers Office Museum, 437 7th Street NW, Washington, 20004, United States
The drama continues! The PBS hit series, Mercy Street‘s second season is packed with more drama, more medicine, and more history. Join the Clara Barton Missing Soldiers Office staff to watch and discuss the latest episode. Discover the history behind the historical drama.
In the second episode, “The House Guest,” Mary tries to conceal her illness while Alice schemes. The episode will premiere on Sunday January 29th at 8:00 pm on PBS.

The second season of Mercy Street premieres on Sunday January 22.

Season Premiere: Mercy Street Viewing Party
2017-01-26 18:00 - 19:15 | Clara Barton Missing Soldiers Office Museum, 437 7th Street NW, Washington, 20004, United States
It’s back. The PBS hit series, Mercy Street, returns for a second season with more drama, more medicine, and more history to unpack. Join the Clara Barton Missing Soldiers Office Museum staff to watch and discuss the latest episode. Discover the history behind the historical drama.
The first episode opens in the wake of Lincoln’s visit as the hospital staff tries to save one of their own. The episode will premiere on Sunday January 22nd at 8:00 pm on PBS.

Concerts at Clara's: Bellwether Bayou with Slim Rosa
2016-11-18 19:00 - 21:00 | Clara Barton Missing Soldiers Office Museum, 437 7th Street NW, Washington, 20004, United States
Continuing the Concert at Clara’s series, the Clara Barton Missing Soldiers Office Museum is thrilled to welcome Bellwether Bayou and Slim Rosa.
Bellwether Bayou is the solo folk project of Laura Schwartz, a classically trained violinist who has been moving steadily in a more folksy direction since living in New Orleans, Ithaca, and Xi’an, China. Based in Washington, D.C., Bellwether Bayou brings looping violin and soulful vocals together to create a modern take on classic folk sensibilities. The sound of Bellwether Bayou mixes original tunes with unexpected covers and new spins on old traditionals. Schwartz has previously performed at the Museum as part of the Clara Barton Sessions.
Slim Rosa is a side project collaboration of the founding members of The Iris Bell, Matthew Hunt and Laura Hinson. For this new project, Matthew and Laura wanted to explore a more plaintive side to their songwriting. Slim Rosa blends acoustic guitars and analog organs with vocal harmonies, evoking the duo’s connection to their Tennessee/North Carolina/Georgia roots.
This performance is part of a yearlong series: Concerts at Clara’s. Throughout the year, different local musicians will perform in the historic rooms of the Missing Soldiers Office. Throughout history, music has helped bring people together, it has been a way to share stories and to find common ground. The Clara Barton Missing Soldiers Office is proud to continue this tradition with Concerts at Clara’s.
Doors open at 7:00 pm, Concert begins at 7:30 pm.
SOLD OUT
This event is sold out. To be added to the waiting list, please e-mail amelia.grabowski@civilwarmed.org.
Tours of the Museum will not be given during the concert.

Fighting for Education
2016-11-15 17:15 - 18:15 | Clara Barton Missing Soldiers Office Museum, 437 7th Street NW, Washington, 20004, United States
THIS EVENT HAS BEEN CANCELLED
Clara Barton believed everyone should be able to get an education: male or female, black or white, rich or poor. Over 150 years later, the fight to ensure all children have access to a decent education is far from over.
Teaching for Change is one organization that continues to fight for social justice in education. Teaching for Change, along with the staff of the Clara Barton Missing Soldiers Office Museum, will discuss how Clara Barton worked to ensure greater educational access for all, and how others are fighting the good fight today.
This program is perfect for those passionate about innovation in education, social justice, those curious about Clara Barton’s life, and educators of every variety.
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Cut It Off! An Amputation and Demonstration
2016-10-29 16:00 - 18:00 | Clara Barton Missing Soldiers Office Museum, 437 7th Street NW, Washington, 20004, United States
Join Atlas Obscura as they get into the Halloween spirit and turn the Missing Soldiers Office into an impromptu operating theater.
Watch a Civil War medical historian amputate a gel leg using authentic 19th-century tools and techniques. The leg, made from a forensic gel and simulated bone, looks, feels, and even sounds (!) remarkably like the real thing.
Get Your Tickets Now

Clara Barton: Beyond the Battlefield
2016-10-22 14:00 - 15:30 | Clara Barton Missing Soldiers Office Museum, 437 7th Street NW, Washington, 20004, United States
The Mid Maryland Performing Arts Center’s Dance FX student repertory company invites you to an evening of compelling, original dance inspired by Clara Barton’s service, sacrifice, and contributions to American history.
Choreographer, Kelsy Rupp, was inspired to create a site-specific dance honoring Clara Barton and her contributions. “I visited the site and you could feel Clara Barton’s presence in the rooms,” noted the choreographer, “Knowing how much was accomplished within that space is overwhelming. So much of what she dealt with–personally and as a humanitarian–mirror many of the issues our country is facing today.”
Mid Maryland Performing Arts Center’s Dance FX is a dance company based in Frederick, MD. The company consists of young, advanced dancers, who explore a variety of dance styles. The Clara Barton Missing Soldiers Office Museum is thrilled to welcome these young performers as they interpret the history of the Clara Barton Missing Soldiers Office through dance.
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Concerts at Clara's: Ballad've
2016-09-23 19:00 - 21:00 | Clara Barton Missing Soldiers Office Museum, 437 7th Street NW, Washington, 20004, United States
Continuing the Concert at Clara’s series, the Clara Barton Missing Soldiers Office Museum is thrilled to welcome Ballad’ve. This DC-based folk fusion trio will fill the historic rooms with song in this special performance.
Ballad’ve draws its musical influences from the shape-note singing tradition, early blues, old-time, and such modern popular artists as Gillian Welch, Anais Mitchell, and Elliott Smith. Their music intertwines close vocal harmonies with finger-style guitar (provided by veteran songwriter Margaret Wasaff), blues banjo (provided by multi-instrumentalist and musicologist Anders Fahey), and a range of rhythmic stylings from a literal suitcase full of percussion instruments including the suitcase itself (provided by classically trained percussionist Manny Arciniega). Ballad’ve has previously performed at the Museum as part of the Clara Barton Sessions.
Ballad’ve’s performance is part of the Concerts at Clara’s series. Throughout the year, different local musicians will perform in the historic rooms of the Missing Soldiers Office. Throughout history, music has helped bring people together, it has been a way to share stories and to find common ground. The Clara Barton Missing Soldiers Office is proud to continue this tradition with Concerts at Clara’s.
Doors open at 7:00 pm, Concert begins at 7:30 pm.
Get Your Tickets Now
Tours of the Museum will not be given during the concert.

Cancelled: Evergreen Shade
2016-06-24 19:00 - 20:00 | Clara Barton Missing Soldiers Office Museum, 437 7th Street NW, Washington, 20004, United States
This event has been cancelled. Please join us for the next Concert at Clara’s with Bellwether Bayou and Slim Rosa.

Extended Hours
2016-05-29 12:00 - 17:00 | Clara Barton Missing Soldiers Office Museum, 437 7th Street NW, Washington, 20004, United States
Join us to remember those who gave the ultimate sacrifice, and those that worked to help their families.
Saturday May 28th: Noon to 7:00 pm
Sunday May 29th: Noon to 5:00 pm
Monday May 30th, Memorial Day: Closed
Please note, the last admission will be an hour before closing.

A Conversation with Cokie Roberts
2016-05-14 14:00 - 15:00 | Clara Barton Missing Soldiers Office Museum, 437 7th Street NW, Washington, 20004, United States
Cokie Roberts, political commentator for ABC News and National Public Radio, and the author of Capital Dames: The Civil War and the Women of Washington, 1848-1868, will explore the incredible story of women in the Union capital before, during, and after the American Civil War.
In a time of great upheaval, she writes of the opportunities and risks that women in Washington experienced during that tumultuous era.
The presentation will take place within the rooms Clara Barton operated her Civil War battlefield operations and later her Missing Soldiers Office. As Roberts stated about Clara Barton at the July 28, 2015 dedication ceremony of the museum, “This tiny little woman played such an enormous difference in the country and the world, and continues to make a difference today.”
Cokie Roberts is a political commentator for ABC News and National Public Radio. In her more than forty years in broadcasting, she has won countless awards, including three Emmys. She has been inducted into the Broadcasting and Cable Hall of Fame, and was cited by the American Women in Radio and Television as one of the fifty greatest women in the history of broadcasting. Besides Capital Dames, Roberts’ histories of women include Founding Mothers: Remembering the Ladies and Ladies of Liberty: The Women Who Shaped Our Nation. In 2008, the Library of Congress named Cokie Roberts a “Living Legend,” making her one of the very few Americans to have attained that honor.
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Washington DC's Working Girls
2016-05-07 16:00 - 18:00 | Clara Barton Missing Soldiers Office Museum, 437 7th Street NW, Washington, 20004, United States
Join Atlas Obscura and the Clara Barton Missing Soldiers Office Museum for an afternoon with Washington, DC’s nineteenth century “working girls.”
While we explore the Missing Soldiers Office, we’ll learn about the many women who made Washington, DC work. Museum staff will share stories about exceptional women like Clara Barton, who worked first as a clerk in the United States Patent Office and then as a tireless humanitarian. We’ll also hear about women who went to work in the offices of U.S. government agencies and the many unnamed women who worked as prostitutes in Washington, DC. Museum staff will show us a selection of artifacts and prints relating to women’s work, including nineteenth century office supplies, historic condoms, and STI treatments.
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Discovering Clara Barton's Missing Soldiers Office
2016-04-30 16:30 - 18:00 | Clara Barton Missing Soldiers Office Museum, 437 7th Street NW, Washington, 20004, United States
In the 1990s, Richard Lyons, an employee with the U.S. General Services Administration, made a surprising discovery. While inspecting the building at 437 7th Street, NW for demolition, he found a collection of 19th century items tucked away in an attic crawl space on the third floor. Mr. Lyons subsequently realized that the building previously held Clara Barton’s Office of Correspondence with the Friends of the Missing Men of the United States Army, or commonly known as, the Missing Soldiers Office.
Please join the Clara Barton Missing Soldiers Office Museum in welcoming Richard Lyons for a special discussion of his experiences while inspecting the building, his role in preserving the site, and the steps involved in bringing Clara Barton’s Missing Soldiers Office from the brink of demolition to the newest museum in Washington, DC.
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Restoring Clara Barton’s Missing Soldiers Office
2016-04-20 18:00 - 19:00 | Clara Barton Missing Soldiers Office Museum, 437 7th Street NW, Washington, 20004, United States
In 1997, a U.S. General Services Administration (GSA) employee readying a property for sale and demolition made a surprising discovery. Civil War era belongings, battlefield supplies and painted signs revealed the location of Clara Barton’s long forgotten Missing Soldiers Office. Through a series of precedent-setting partnerships, the redevelopment came to fruition while the Missing Soldiers Office was restored as a museum, making the continuing discovery of the spaces as Clara Barton knew them an integral part of the visitor experience.
Join Caroline Alderson and Elizabeth Hannold of GSA’s national preservation program for a behind-the-scenes journey through the discovery, investigation, restoration and interpretation of the 150 year-old boarding house where Barton lived and worked. See how original components and fragments were integrated into replicated Civil War era gaslighting, building systems and wall coverings found in the third floor rooms. Probe clues to unsolved mysteries –hidden openings, graffiti notations, shifted passageways—peering into view portals and exposure “windows” for a compelling glimpse into Clara Barton’s Civil War refuge.
