Elizabeth Morrison Harbert ( Boynton; pen name, Lizzie M. Boynton; April 15, 1843/1845 - January 19, 1925) was a 19th-century American author, lecturer, reformer and philanthropist from Indiana. She was the first women to design a woman's plank and secure its adoption by a major political party in a U.S. state.
Harbert was a prolific writer, with publications such as The Golden Fleece, Out of Her Sphere, Amore, and The Illinois Chapter in the History of Woman Suffrage. Her songs included: “Arlington Heights”, “What Have You Done with the Hours?”, “The New America” (lyrics), and “The Promised Land” (lyrics). Her poems included “The Little Earth Angel” and Lines to My Anonymous Friend”. Harbart's essays and lecturers were on topics such as “Before Suffrage, What?”, “Homes of Representative Women”, “The Domestic Problem”, “Men's Rights”, “Conversation and Conversers”, “The Ideal Home”, “George Eliot”, “Lucretia Mott”, “Statesmanship of Women”, “Aims, Ideals and Methods of Women’s Clubs”, “A Woman’s Dream of Cooperation”, “The Message of the Madonna", “Lyric Poets of Russia”, and “An Hour with the Strong Minded.”
Early life and education
Elizabeth Morrison Boynton was born in Crawfordsville, Indiana on April 15, 1843 (or 1845). She was a daughter of William H. Boynton, formerly of Nashua, New Hampshire. Her mother was Abigail Sweetser, a native of Boston.
Harbert was educated in the women's seminary in Oxford, Ohio and in the Terre Haute Female College, graduating from the latter institution with honors in 1862.
The faculty of Wabash College allowed Harbert and three other young women to attend physics lectures taught by Prof. John Lyle Campbell. Although these lectures were substantially repetitions of those required in the college curriculum, the young men were excluded from attending the lectures being provided to the four women. Before he died, Dr. Charles White, President of Wabash College, promised Harbert a diploma upon the completion of her course of study. Not long after, the same four women, and 19 others, petitioned the faculty for permission to be admitted to the college. The faculty responded with regrets, stating that the facilities were inadequate to admit women, although each of the 23 women had progressed far beyond the “preparatory” department. The first US$10.00 Harbert earned as a writer came from The New York Independent for an account of this attempt to obtain a college education.
This group of 23 women, under the leadership of the first four demonstrated their indignation and disappointment by creating a public library. For funding, they advertised the presentation of a comedy, entitled “The Coming Woman”, in which they burlesqued themselves and their unsuccessful efforts to gain admission to Wabash College. In a relentless manner, the male students issued burlesque handbills and posters. In one day, not less than five varieties were issued. The ladies were styled “the Twenty-three Sorry Sisses”, in an attempt to pun upon the word “Sorosis”, which latter organization was attracting considerable attention in the East. The adverse criticism attracted an unusually large audience, and with the considerable amount of money which was netted, they purchased the nucleus for a circulating library. Boynton was 20 years old at the time.
In 1891, Ohio Wesleyan College conferred upon Harbert the honorary degree of Doctor of Philosophy.
Career
Indiana
During the American Civil War (1861–65), Harbert cared for Union soldiers. She published her first book, "The Golden Fleece," in 1867, and delivered her first lecture, in Crawfordsville, in 1869.
Iowa
In 1870, she married William Soesbe Harbert. After their marriage, they removed to Des Moines, Iowa, where Harbert published her second book, entitled "Out of Her Sphere", as well as her first song, “Arlington Heights”. Harbert took an active part in the woman suffrage movement. She convinced the Republican Party of Iowa to put into their State platform a woman's plank which prepared a platform based on Harbert's presentation. In this way, Harbert became the first woman to design a woman's plank and secure its adoption by a major political party in a U.S. state.