One day during the Civil War, Clara Barton visited the office of a colonel in the Union Army. "I want to go to the front," she told him, before bursting into tears. "That is no place for a woman," the colonel replied. Barton informed him that she had collected three warehouses full of clothes, food, and medical supplies for troops and needed a pass to get through army checkpoints. The colonel quickly changed his mind and gave Barton everything she asked for.

[Years later, Barton founded the American Red Cross.]