Unrecorded Clara Barton Lecture Broadside

[Civil War]: Barton, Clara:

100 Seats Reserved for Moline, Without Extra Charge. Miss Clara Barton Will Lecture at Babcock's Hall, Rock Island, Illinois. Friday Evening, Jan. 18, 1867... [caption title].

Rock Island, IL: L.M. Haverstick, Printer, Union Job Rooms, [ca. January 18, 1867]. Broadside, 24 x 18 inches. Old folds, minor creasing, a few small chips, short closed tear to left edge near the "B" in "Babcock's," faint circular dampstain in center, minor scattered foxing. Withal, very good condition. Item #13091

A visually appealing and seemingly unique surviving broadside advertising a January 18, 1867 lecture by Clara Barton. At the time, Barton was touring with her lecture, entitled "War & Incidents of Army Life," part of a popular post-Civil War series of talks she delivered across the United States. Barton spent two years touring and recounting her battlefield experiences, which helped popularize her and fund her subsequent efforts to locate missing soldiers. The present lecture was delivered at Babcock's Hall in Rock Island, Illinois. In addition to the bold title containing the relevant information on the lecture, and the information on obtaining tickets at the bottom, the middle portion of the broadside prints a quote by noted temperance lecturer John B. Gough, praising Barton's lecture: "Miss Clara Barton was at my house and read Her Lecture to us, and I must say I never heard anything more touching, more thrilling in my life. I want all to hear her." Below this quote is a notice that, although Moline and Rock Island are only a few miles apart, "An Extra Train" on the famed Rock Island Railroad will be provided to transport attendees of the lecture from Moline for a ten-cent fare. Typographically, the broadside is interesting for employing several sizes and types of fonts, likely wooden type, which provides multiple opportunities for catching the eye of the observer. This includes a rather Gothic-style font when printing the date of the lecture.

Clara Barton (1821-1912) was a noted educator and humanitarian who helped distribute needed supplies to the Union Army during the Civil War and later founded the American Red Cross. Barton garnered nationwide recognition for her efforts during the war, and quickly became known as the "Angel of the Battlefield." After the war, Barton's lecture tour brought her in contact with other notables of the day, including Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and also Frederick Douglass, who involved her in the suffrage and civil rights movements, respectively. In the Fall of 1866, Barton began to lecture on her Civil War experiences in lyceum halls, churches, town halls, and schools. Though she never felt comfortable in front of an audience, wherever she spoke Barton was well received. Her contemporary biographer Percy Epler wrote that "a tear-stained multitude thronged everywhere to hear her," as she had made it her mission to show not "the glories of conquering armies but the mischief and misery they strew in their tracks; and how, while they march on...some one must follow closely in their steps, crouching to the earth, faces bathed in tears and hands in blood. This is the side which history never shows."

From 1866 through 1868, Barton delivered over 200 lectures throughout the northeast and midwest regarding her Civil War experiences. She shared platforms with other prominent figures including the aforementioned Douglass, as well as Ralph Waldo Emerson, William Lloyd Garrison, and Mark Twain. She often earned $75 to $100 per lecture. Original broadsides advertising her lectures are exceedingly rare, to say the least. We could locate just a single result in auction records, of a much smaller example, and OCLC reports just one institutional holding of any Barton lecture broadside (again, much smaller), for an 1867 event in New Haven, located at the Library of Congress.

Price: $6,500