Harbert Made History in Crawfordsville

courtesy of the Boynton-Harbert Society

     When I saw the theme for this year’s Women’s History Month (Women’s Education-Women’s Empowerment) I immediately thought of Crawfordsville’s most famous suffragist, Elizabeth Boynton Harbert. Elizabeth was born in 1843; she attended school here and in Ohio, and graduated from the Terre Haute Female College in 1862. Returning to Crawfordsville, she began writing and published her first book in 1867. Elizabeth’s work as a suffragist began in 1868 when she applied for admission to Wabash College and was denied. Throughout her life, Elizabeth was at the front of the fight for the vote and often argued that women needed education if they were to gain equal rights (an idea perhaps inspired by Mary Wollstonecraft). She lived to see the fulfillment of her dreams when the nineteenth amendment was ratified in 1920, giving women the vote.
     Read more about Elizabeth Boynton Harbert and other famous Montgomery County women in Hidden History of Montgomery County, Indiana, coming this spring from the History Press!