About Harriet Converse Moody
Harriet Converse Moody (March 18, 1857 – February 22, 1932) was an American businesswoman and arts patron. Moody began her career in Chicago in 1889, working as a schoolteacher and then forming a successful restaurant and catering business that operated for almost 40 years. After her brief marriage to the poet William Vaughn Moody, which ended upon his death of brain cancer, she became a patron to artists, particularly poets. == Early life == Born in Parkman, Ohio, on March 18, 1857, Harriet Converse moved with her father, a livestock broker, and mother to Chicago c. 1867. She attended the Howland School in Union Springs, New York, and graduated with an English literature degree from Cornell University in 1876. After attending the Woman's Medical College of Pennsylvania for one year, she made her society debut in Chicago and married the lawyer Edward Brainard; they divorced in the 1880s. == Restaurant business == Following the death of her father, Moody became the primary caregiver for her mother. In 1889, she began working as a schoolteacher; Alice Corbin Henderson was one of her students. That same year, after "a series of culinary experiments with chicken salad and gingerbread", she founded a catering and restaurant company, Home Delicacies Association.
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