"WHEN WE RECALL THE OCCASION WHICH BROUGHT US TO KNOW EACH OTHER… HOW COULD IT BE THAT WE SHOULD NOT RECALL EACH OTHER?": FIRST EDITION, PRESENTATION/ASSOCIATION COPY, OF THE STORY OF MY CHILDHOOD, WITH A SPLENDID FULL-PAGE INSCRIPTION BY CLARA BARTON TO LT. C.H. BINCKLEY, WHO SHE MET IN THE AFTERMATH OF THE 1900 GALVESTON HURRICANE

BARTON, Clara. The Story of My Childhood. New York: Baker & Taylor, 1907. 12mo, original full red sheep. Housed in a custom cloth chemise and half morocco slipcase.

First edition, presentation copy, of Clara Barton's childhood memoir, very warmly inscribed to a man she met while providing Red Cross relief to survivors of the 1900 Galveston hurricane: "To Lieut. O.H. Binckley, My dear Lieut., When we recall the occasion which brought us to know each other. The scenes we lived through. The woes we witnessed, how could it be that we should not recall each other? In all the better days to come 'Thou will think of me, and I will think of thee.' Sincerely Clara Barton. Glen Echo Md. March 25 1910."

Barton was widely known for her efforts in organizing nursing and hospital relief efforts during the Civil War, and in 1877 she was charged by the International Red Cross with organizing the American Red Cross. She wrote the American amendment to the Red Cross Constitution stipulating that the organization would assist not only during wartime but after floods, hurricanes, earthquakes and other natural disasters. "For the next 22 years, Barton was president of the American National Red Cross… Clara Barton's own works [such as] The Story of My Childhood (1907) are important both as firsthand accounts and for gaining her perspective" (ANB). This copy is inscribed to Lieutenant O.H. Binckley. Binckley met Barton in Galveston, Texas. Barton was engaged in humanitarian efforts there following the 1900 hurricane that devastated Galveston. At age 78, she was in charge of the American Red Cross and devoted her efforts to establishing an orphanage for the storm's youngest victims and amassing materials to help people rebuild their homes. Barton and Binckley corresponded in the years that followed. In one letter, Barton wrote: "How the years have fled since we met, and ruined Galveston is larger and finer than ever, but the dreadful wreck that it was, neither of us desire to recollect."

A few spots of soiling to interior, wear to fragile binding, chips at spine ends and corners. A very good inscribed copy, most desirable inscribed.