11 Facts About Clara Conway

Clara Conway was a Public School Teacher, School Administrator in the Memphis School district and an early woman's political activist.

Clara Conway founded the Clara Conway Institute for Girls in Memphis, Tennessee and an application was granted for chartership 1 June 1885 and was a founding member of the Nineteenth Century Club in 1890.

Clara Conway was born in New Orleans, Louisiana on August 14,1844.

Clara Conway attended the St Agnes Academy in Memphis, but received most of her education at home.

Clara Conway began her career at the age of twenty-one as a public school teacher.

Clara Conway later became the principal of the Alabama Street School and the Market Street School.

Clara Conway remained heavily involved in educational issues for women, speaking publicly at the National Educational Association in Madison, Wisconsin, on the needs of southern women in 1884 and 1886, and in 1887 she was elected a member of the National Council.

Clara Conway argued that a woman's duty is first and foremost to herself, not to her husband, which was a common viewpoint even among female activists.

In 1878, Clara Conway left to open a private high school for girls.

Clara Conway's idea was to teach the principles of absolute thoroughness and establish a system of education that would help girls, if conditions made self-support necessary become economically independent through a solid foundation of education.

Clara Conway spent the later years of her life teaching, speaking out for woman rights and campaigning for women's higher education at the local, state and national level until her untimely death in 1904.