She is best known for her novel Zauberlinda the Wise Witch (1901), which took inspiration from The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (1900) by L. Frank Baum.

Clapp's paternal grandmother was Lucy Lee, who was a direct descendant, on her father's side, from Pocahontas.

When she was about 16 years, she visited for a time in the large eastern cities, and subsequently taught school in Western Massachusetts.

Her first story, written when she was 20 years old, was a novel entitled Her Bright Future, drawn largely from life.

"Her Bright Future" was a sermon on the evil of intemperance, while "Mismated" presents the errors in our social system which its title indicates.

[1] Clapp married Dr. C. B. Gibson of Chicago, in 1892, and spent a year in Europe, where she made a study of the literature of Germany and France.