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Draft:Helen M. Moore

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  • Comment: familysearch.org is not a reliable source either. Theroadislong (talk) 19:12, 2 October 2025 (UTC)
  • Comment: www.findagrave.com and ancestry.com are user edited so not reliable sources. Theroadislong (talk) 17:06, 25 September 2025 (UTC)

Helen Maria Moore (Aug. 2, 1862 – Aug. 2, 1954) was an American author, librarian, and editor who wrote the first biography published on the life of Mary Shelly, the English author of Frankenstein.

Life and career

[edit]

Helen Maria Moore was born on August 2, 1862,[1] in Dubuque, Iowa. Her parents were Eben N. Moore, a pharmacist, and Lucy Green Cleveland Moore. Her siblings were Henry Cleveland Moore (1860-1881) and Elizabeth Putnam Moore (1865-1943).[2] The family lived in Iowa until 1880 and then moved to Chicago, Illinois. [3] It was here that Moore attended a private school with a focus in literature and Latin. [4]

Helen Moore circa 1930. [5]

Another move in 1883 relocated the family to Philadelphia, where Moore continued her education at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts (PAFA). [6] She took life drawing classes that year under the instruction of controversial artist Thomas Eakins. Moore attended PAFA for just one year, before continuing her education at New York University. [4]

In August of 1885 Moore wrote to Percy Florence Shelley, expressing her admiration of his mother, Mary Shelley, and wished to write her biography.[7] The following summer in 1886, Moore’s book, Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley,[8] was published by the J. B. Lippincott Company of Philadelphia. Lippincott was an associate of her former instructor Eakins. [9] Promotion of the book resulted in reviews and advertisements in newspapers across the country. The book was priced at $1.25,[10] and the reviews were generally favorable for the young author’s first book, although the Chicago Tribune stated, “the authoress gives her imagination too free a scope for a book of this description." [11]

Following the release of the book, Moore began correspondence with Percy Ives, a former classmate at PAFA. She wrote that she would be traveling to France with her mother and sister. Ives, already in Paris and studying at the Beaux-Arts, arranged accommodations for the Moore family who arrived in September. While in Paris, Ives escorted the women to the local museums and gardens.[12] In October Moore left her mother and sister in Paris and traveled to England, returning to the United States in November. Ives wrote to family friend Walt Whitman and asked if he would be willing to meet with Moore upon her return. The letter is held at the Whitman Archive, although it is unknown if Whitman and Moore ever met.[13]

By 1890 Moore and her family had moved to Manhattan where Moore became the first paid librarian for University Settlement Society,[14] a charity organization that assisted immigrants in the city. Moore’s annual reports and comments for the need of children’s books were often quoted in the press. She wrote an essay titled “Tenement Neighborhood Idea – University Settlement” that was included with other authors and published in 1893, titled “The Literature of Philanthropy”.[15] Before leaving University Settlement Society in 1900, Moore had established a library that began with 400 books and had grown to a collection of 5,000. Three years later the library was absorbed into the New York City Public Library.[16]

Over the next few years Moore continued to write from home while living with her parents and sister.[17] In 1909, she began working for a second organization, the Russell Sage Foundation. She would remain there for the next 37 years as an editor, editing several hundred books and pamphlets over the course of her long career. Moore also served as a member of the education committee of the New York State Commission on Immigration[18] and retired at the age of 84 in 1946. [19] She never married or had children and spent her last years in a Fairfield, Connecticut nursing home. She died on her 92nd birthday in 1954, [20] leaving the bulk of her estate to close friend, Ethel Mason Eaton.[21] Eaton, a fellow writer and widow with two children, had met Moore through literary connections. A "Pioneer in Social Work", Moore's obituary was published in several states and credited her with "establishing the first recognized children's library in the country" and one of the first social workers to aid immigrant families in New York City slums. [18]

Moore died in 1954.[4]

Selected publications

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  • Moore, Helen (1886). Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley. Philadelphia: J.B. Lippincott. OCLC 1111168968.[22]

== References

  1. ^ Cleveland, Edmund Janes (1899). The genealogy of the Cleveland and Cleaveland families. Vol. 2. Printed for the subscribers by the Case, Lockwood & Brainard company; Hartford, CT. p. 1123.
  2. ^ "North America, Family Histories, 1500-2000". www.ancestry.com. 2016. Retrieved 2025-09-23.
  3. ^ "United States, Census, 1880", FamilySearch (https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:MXJ4-QNR : Mon Jan 20 04:04:45 UTC 2025), Entry for Eben H. Moor and Lucy C. Moor, 1880.
  4. ^ a b c "HELEN MOORE, 92, SOCIAL AIDE, DIES; Research Editor of Russell Sage Foundation 37 Years Helped Immigrants Here (Published 1954)". 1954-08-03. Retrieved 2025-09-23.
  5. ^ Portraits - Helen Moore, undated; Russell Sage Foundation photographs, Subgrp 1059; Rockefeller Archive Center; https://dimes.rockarch.org/objects/fnb3FucXJRU4TbJfZTicDJ
  6. ^ Helen Moore. RG.03.03.04 Student records. Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts Archives, Philadelphia, PA. Retrieved 5-6-2025.
  7. ^ "Helen Moore to Percy Florence Shelley , 20 Aug. 1885 | Bodleian Archives & Manuscripts". archives.bodleian.ox.ac.uk. Archived from the original on 2021-04-19. Retrieved 2025-09-23.
  8. ^ Moore, Helen (1886). Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley. Philadelphia: J.B. Lippincott. OCLC 1111168968.
  9. ^ "Study for "Portrait of Joshua Ballinger Lippincott"".
  10. ^ "Jun 21, 1886, page 4 - The Indianapolis News at Newspapers.com". Newspapers.com. Retrieved 2025-09-23.
  11. ^ "Jul 17, 1886, page 13 - Chicago Tribune at Newspapers.com". Newspapers.com. Retrieved 2025-09-23.
  12. ^ Ives, Percy (1886). "Diary, 1885-1887". Detroit Public Library. Burton Historical Collection. 1 (D5).
  13. ^ "Percy Ives to Walt Whitman, 21 October 1886 | Whitman Archive". whitmanarchive.org. Retrieved 2025-09-23.
  14. ^ Library, New York Public; Lydenberg, Harry Miller (1923). History of the New York Public Library: Astor, Lenox and Tilden Foundations. New York Public Library.
  15. ^ Goodale, Frances Abigail Rockwell; Bellamy, Blanche Wilder; Lowell, Josephine Shaw; Spahr, Jean Fine; McLean, Fannie W.; Moore, Helen; Damon, Mary B.; Brennan, Agnes L.; Doolittle, Laura M. (1893). The literature of philanthropy. University of California Libraries. New York : Harper & brothers.
  16. ^ Library, New York Public; Lydenberg, Harry Miller (1923). History of the New York Public Library: Astor, Lenox and Tilden Foundations. New York Public Library.
  17. ^ "New York, State Census, 1905", FamilySearch (https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:SPXM-4PF : Fri Jan 31 20:32:39 UTC 2025), Entry for Eben H Moore and Helen Moore, 1905.
  18. ^ a b "Helen Moore, Pioneer in Social Work". Newsday (Suffolk Edition). August 3, 1954. Retrieved 2025-09-23.
  19. ^ "Helen Moore". The Boston Globe. 2 August 1954. Retrieved 2025-09-23.
  20. ^ "Aug 04, 1954, page 25 - The Bridgeport Telegram at Newspapers.com". Newspapers.com. Retrieved 2025-09-23.
  21. ^ "May 16, 1957, page 2 - The Record at Newspapers.com". Newspapers.com. Retrieved 2025-09-23.
  22. ^ Reviews of Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley



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