Elizabeth Armstrong Reed

Who was Elizabeth Armstrong Reed?

Sophia Elizabeth Reed was an American Oriental scholar and author whose books were widely used as college textbooks in various universities worldwide for Oriental studies. Hers were, at the time, the only works by a woman accepted by the Philosophical Society of Great Britain. She was born in Winthrop, Maine.

She was married to Hiram Vaughn Reed, an Age to Come preacher and newspaper publisher, in 1860, meeting him at a religious debate in Buchannan, Michigan. She was the mother of author Myrtle Reed, and two sons, Earl Howell and Charles B. Reed.

In 1893 she was chairman of the Woman's Congress of Philology at Chicago and in 1896 became an editor of the Course of Universal Literature. Reed served two terms as the president of the Illinois Woman's Press Association 1894 until 1896 and 1902 until 1904. She received honorary degrees from Northwestern and Illinois Wesleyan universities and Bethany College.