| Charlotte Reeve Conover | |
| Birth Name: | Charlotte Reeve |
| Birth Date: | June 14, 1855 |
| Birth Place: | Dayton, Ohio |
| Resting Place: | Woodland Cemetery and Arboretum |
| Genre: | History |
| Genres: | --> |
| Subjects: | --> |
| Notablework: | --> |
| Spouses: | --> |
| Partners: | --> |
Charlotte Reeve Conover (June 14, 1855 – September 23, 1940) was an American author, lecturer, political activist, educator, and "Dayton's historian".[1]
Conover was born to physician Dr. John Charles and Emma Barlow Reeve on June 14, 1855. She attended Dayton Central High School, Cooper Seminary, and the University of Geneva.
Conover wrote books about Dayton history and articles for Ladies' Home Journal, Harper's and The Atlantic. She wrote a regular column called "Mrs. Conover's Corner" for the Dayton Daily News and served as editor of the Women's Page for four years. Her four-volume history Dayton and Montgomery County was in 1965 considered "the most authentic public record of Dayton and its pioneer citizens." She was noted for her "pioneering studies" of area history.[2]
In her later years she lost her eyesight but continued to write columns for the Dayton Daily News; friends visited to help her read, and the paper's owner and editor, Governor Cox, never knew that she was blind.
In 1901, Conover martialled the Young Women's League of Dayton to take over the publication of the Dayton Daily News - known as "The Day The Women Got Out The News" - on March 30, 1901, as a fundraiser for the organization.[3] Conover was a leader of the Woman's Suffrage Party of Montgomery County. In The Importance for Women to have Suffrage: An Address before the Woman Suffrage Association she spoke of the importance of suffrage and equality of the sexes to the country's future. Conover was a founder of the Dayton Woman's Literary Club and served as its fourth president, from 1895 to 1897.[4] She encouraged other writers, among them fellow Daytonian Paul Laurence Dunbar.
In 1932, one of her lectures, Ramblings of an Ancient Daytonian, was reprinted in its entirety in the Dayton Daily News.
The Dayton Daily News in 1940 called her "Dayton's foremost historian."[5] This obituary appeared on the front pages of the Dayton Daily News[6] and the Dayton Herald,[7] and on the editorial page of the Dayton Journal.[8] NCR chairman of the board E. A. Deeds called her "perhaps Dayton's most outstanding citizen."
Conover married lawyer Frank K. Conover on October 14, 1879.[9] They had four children, Elizabeth Dickson, John Charles Reeve, Wilbur Dickson, and Charlotte Mary.
Conover was inducted into the Dayton Walk of Fame in 2007. Paul Laurence Dunbar dedicated his Lyrics of Sunshine and Shadow to her. She is listed in Woman's Who's Who of America 1914 - 1915.