1855 – 1940
Charlotte Reeve Conover was a distinguished author, lecturer, and historian, known for her pioneering studies of Dayton history and her generous support for others. A well-traveled and highly intelligent woman, Ms. Conover wrote articles for Atlantic Monthly, Ladies Home Journal, and Harper’s magazines. For four years, she served as Woman’s page editor of the Dayton Daily News and wrote a weekly column for the newspaper called “Mrs. Conover’s Corner.” Her several works on Dayton history, including the influential “Dayton, Ohio: An Intimate History” introduced Daytonian’s to themselves. She was very interested in sharing the fruits of her learning; not only did she give many public lectures, but she encouraged other authors, among them Paul Laurence Dunbar. Upon her death, a contemporary said, “Here is a citizen whom we honor because she has labored to keep the mind of Dayton alive.” Her key place in Dayton’s cultural life
was acknowledged in 1932 when her lecture titled “The Ramblings of an Ancient Daytonian” and sponsored by such luminaries as Orville Wright, Frank M. Tait, and Frederick Rike, was printed in its entirety in the Dayton Daily News.