Ida Husted Harper

Who was Ida Husted Harper?

Ida Husted Harper was a prominent figure in the United States women's suffrage movement. She was an American author and journalist who wrote primarily to document the movement and show support of its ideals.

Ida was born in Fairfield, Franklin County, Indiana to John Arthur Husted and Cassandra Stoddard. By 1870, she was a school teacher in Peru, Indiana. Later, she became a principal of a high school in Peru, Indiana and on December 28, 1871, she married Thomas Winans Harper of Terre Haute, Indiana, who went on to become a successful attorney and politician and whom she would later divorce.

She began writing woman's columns, first in a Terre Haute newspaper under the pseudonym "John Smith" and later in a union magazine edited by activist Eugene V. Debs of Terre Haute. Through this period, she increasingly became more interested in the campaign for women's suffrage.

In 1887, she helped to organize a woman suffrage society in Indiana, serving as its secretary and in 1896 joined the National American Woman Suffrage Association where she worked as a reporter and, ultimately, an historian of the movement. She brought Susan B. Anthony to Terre Haute for a suffrage convention and became close to her during this period, soon collaborating with her on writing the "History of Woman Suffrage."