Clara E. Weisenborn (February 9, 1907 – January 26, 1985) was a Republican Ohio politician who served in the Ohio General Assembly. Born in

Dayton Dayton () is the sixth-largest city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Montgomery County. A small part of the city extends into Greene County. The 2020 U.S. census estimate put the city population at 137,644, while Greater Da ...

, Weisenborn was a

journalist A journalist is an individual that collects/gathers information in form of text, audio, or pictures, processes them into a news-worthy form, and disseminates it to the public. The act or process mainly done by the journalist is called journalis ...

by trade for the '' Journal Herald'', a prominent Dayton newspaper. She was initially elected to the

Ohio House of Representatives The Ohio House of Representatives is the lower house of the Ohio General Assembly, the state legislature of the U.S. state of Ohio; the other house of the bicameral legislature being the Ohio Senate. The House of Representatives first met in Ch ...

in 1952 and served seven consecutive terms in the House. In 1966, Weisenborn was elected to the Ohio Senate, following the Voting Rights Act of 1965. She was reelected to a second term in 1970. An advocate for

women's rights Women's rights are the rights and entitlements claimed for women and girls worldwide. They formed the basis for the women's rights movement in the 19th century and the feminist movements during the 20th and 21st centuries. In some countries, ...

, Weisenborn challenged and was critical of the fact that no women served as committee chairs in the Ohio legislature. Ultimately, she became one of the first, as chair of the Senate Education Committee. By 1974, the Fifth Senate District was equally distributed among Republicans and Democrats, and Weisenborn was considered vulnerable in her bid for a third term. She was challenged by Neal Zimmers, who was an attorney in Dayton. Ultimately, Weisenborn lost the election, in a year where Democrats took control of both houses of the state legislature. In all, Weisenborn served twenty two years as a legislator. Following her time in elected office, Weisenborn returned to Dayton where she remained active in gardening and her local historical society, as well as championing many park districts throughout the

Miami Valley The Miami Valley is the land area surrounding the Great Miami River in southwest Ohio, USA, and includes the Little Miami, Mad, and Stillwater rivers as well. Geographically, it includes Dayton, Springfield, Middletown, Hamilton, and other ...

. She died in 1985. Weisenborn Middle School in the Dayton suburb of Huber Heights is named in her honor.

References

External links

The Ohio Ladies Gallery: Senator Clara Weisenborn (R-Dayton)
{{DEFAULTSORT:Weisenborn, Clara 1985 deaths Republican Party Ohio state senators Women state legislators in Ohio 1907 births 20th-century American legislators 20th-century American women politicians Politicians from Dayton, Ohio Dayton Daily News 20th-century Ohio politicians