Mrs. Bloomfield H. Moore

Born Clara Sophia Jessup in 1824, she is better known in print as Mrs. Bloomfield H. Moore, or Clara Jessup Moore. She was an American writer and philanthropist from Philadelphia, and sources also identify her under related names such as Clara Sophia Jessup Bloomfield-Moore.

During the American Civil War, she helped organize hospital relief work in Philadelphia. She was also involved in charitable and reform efforts, including support for children’s welfare and temperance work, showing a public life shaped as much by service as by writing.

As an author, she published both fiction and nonfiction. Her later work is especially associated with spiritualism and with unusual scientific ideas of the period, including the book Keely and His Discoveries. That mix of practical reform, literary ambition, and fascination with big mysteries makes her an especially distinctive nineteenth-century figure.