In the 1890s, Clara Ward was the name on everyone’s lips.
The daughter of Michigan’s first millionaire, newspapers called Clara, “As beautiful as she is rich.” At just 17-years-old, she married a Belgian prince and became royalty. Seemingly, she had it all. But in 1896, Clara shocked the world. She ran off with a penniless fiddler named Rigo in the dead of night, trading royalty for freedom and liberation.
From this point on, she was headlining everything from newspapers to Moulin Rouge. She performed cabaret nearly nude. She posed provocatively for postcard photos that were sold (and eventually banned) across Europe. She married 4 times. Psychologists deemed her a nymphomaniac, and said she should be thrown in a ward.
Clara scandalized the world until her untimely death at 43. But despite a lifetime of gossip, Clara is remembered today as exactly the kind of woman she set out to be—an unusual one.
For more on this story, tune in to the Michigistory podcast, by Cassidy Hough and Big Mitten Media.
