Clara Jessup Moore

Clara Sophia Jessup Bloomfield-Moore (February 16, 1824-July 5, 1889) was an American poet, prose writer, and philanthropist and writer.

Life
She was born Clara Sophia Jessup in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, to Augustus Edward Jessup, a scientist and a member of the Academy of Natural Sciences, and Lydia Eager (Moseley).

In 1842, at 18 years of age, she married businessman Bloomfield Haines Moore (1819-1878). She and her husband had three children: Ella Carlton Moore (1843-1892), Clarence Bloomfield Moore (1852-1936), Lilian Stuart Moore (1853-1911).

The following year, her husband gave up his business and invested in her father's paper-making company to form Bloomfield & Moore, which grew to become one of the largest paper manufacturing firms in the United States.

Clara Jessup Moore began writing and publishing under the pen name "Clara Moreston."

She organized a hospital relief committee in Philadelphia during the American Civil War, and assisted in the foundation of the Temperance Home for Children.

Following the 1878 death of her husband, she spent much of her time in London, where she befriended Robert Browning.

Her 1885 book on ether was written because she believed that ether could account for the Keeley motor, to whose projector she gave liberally in order that he might develop his idea.

She died in London.

Poetry

 * Miscellaneous Poems (1875)

Fiction

 * On Dangerous Ground (1876), a romance

Non-fiction

 * The Young Ladies Friend (1876)
 * Sensible Etiquette (1878)
 * Slander and Gossip (1882)
 * Ether the True Protoplasm (1885)
 * Social Ethics and Social Duties. Boston: Estes and Lauriat, 1892. (1892)
 * Keeley and His Discoveries: Aerial navigation. London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner, 1893.