Clara Jessup Moore

Clara Sophia Jessup Bloomfield-Moore (February 16, 1824 – January 5, 1899) was an American philanthropist and philosopher.

Biography She was born in Westfield, Massachusetts to Augustus Edward Jessop (a chemist) and Lydia Eager Mosley Jessup, and attended Westfield Academy and at Mrs. Merrick's School in New Haven, Connecticut.

She married businessman Bloomfield Haines Moore (1819-1878) and resided in Philadelphia during her marriage. Following the death of her husband she moved to London, where she died in 1899. She organized in Philadelphia a hospital relief committee during the American Civil War and assisted in the foundation of the Temperance Home for Children.

She and her husband had three children: Ella Carlton Moore (1843–1892), Clarence Bloomfield Moore (1852–1936), Lilian Stuart Moore (1853–1911). They were the grandparents of Swedish explorer and ethnographer Eric von Rosen.

Philanthropy Among her philanthropic efforts Moore made additional provision to the Jessup Fund established in 1860 by the bequest of her father Augustus E. Jessup. This fund was originally for the purpose of compensating young men to work directly with curatorial staff at the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia. Moore added to the fund to ensure women were offered the same opportunity.

Moore was also a collector of art objects, including oil paintings, jewelry, porcelains, textiles, pottery, glass, and carved ivories; she bequeathed her collection to the Philadelphia Museum of Art.

Philosophy

Her books on etiquette connected the perennial philosophy to social behavior.

Selected works Moore's published works included; The Young Jewess and Her Christian Schoolfellows (1847) Miscellaneous Poems (1875) On Dangerous Ground (1876), a romance Sensible Etiquette (1878) Gondaline's lesson: The warden's tale: Stories for children and other poems (1881) Ether the True Protoplasm (1885) Social Ethics and Social Duties (1892) Keely and His Discoveries (1893)

She also wrote under the pen-names of Clara Moreton and Harriet Oxnard Ward.