Harriet Grim
{{Short description|American suffragist and professor}}
{{Use mdy dates|date = March 2019}}
{{Infobox person
| name = Harriet Grim
| image = Harriet Grim 1912.jpg
| alt =
| caption = Grim in 1912
| birth_name =Harriet Elizabeth Grim
| birth_date = {{birth date|1884|2|25}}
| birth_place = Fulton, Illinois
| death_date = {{death date and age|1967|9|7|1884|2|25}}
| death_place = Oconomowoc, Wisconsin
| nationality = American
| other_names =
| occupation = Professor
| years_active =
| known_for =
}}
Harriet Elizabeth Grim (February 25, 1881 – September 7, 1967) was an American suffragist and professor of speech.{{cite news |title=Harriet E. Grim, Retired Speech Professor, Dies |url=https://www.newspapers.com/image/405635643/?article=644a7793-f619-4c9f-a356-5c27ad516015&focus=0.38397986,0.06279467,0.49577448,0.36701593&xid=3355 |access-date=9 March 2024 |work=Wisconsin State Journal |date= September 9, 1967 |url-access=subscription}} She was known for being a skilled orator. She traveled through the Midwest urging states to adopt their own equal suffrage amendments.{{Cite news|url=https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn93055779/1910-10-07/ed-1/seq-3/|title=Coming to Cairo|date=October 7, 2010|work=The Cairo bulletin|access-date=March 16, 2019|pages=3|issn=2381-3172}}
Early life and education
Grim was born in Fulton, Illinois, the daughter of Ephraim Wages Grim and Elizabeth Jones. She attended high school in Canton, Illinois. She entered college in 1904 at the University of Chicago, where she was an honor student in sociology and speech.{{Cite news|url=https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn86061215/1908-06-16/ed-1/seq-1/|title=Suffragists Insist on Plank in the National Party Platform|date=June 16, 1908|work=Ottumwa tri-weekly courier|access-date=March 16, 2018|issn=2375-3285}} Around 1907, she traveled to Europe to study the women's suffrage movement.
She earned as Master's degree from the University of Wisconsin, followed by a doctorate in 1938.
Career
= Suffragist =
By her early twenties, Grim had already gained national attention for her work advocating for equal suffrage. She pushed the Republican Party to include an equal suffrage plank in its platform. An Iowa newspaper at the time credited Grim's oratory skills along with her youth and beauty for bringing support to the plank.
She "stumped Illinois using her speaking skills to win public opinion." When the Illinois state senate passed its equal suffrage bill in 1911, Grim was the only woman present.{{Cite news|url=https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1911/03/24/104821948.pdf|title=Suffragists win in Illinois|date=March 24, 1911|work=The new York Times|access-date=March 16, 2019}} Grim worked for Wisconsin to pass a state suffrage amendment in 1912. She spent a year leading up to the vote traveling the state giving public speeches.{{Cite news|url=https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn84024827/1912-11-05/ed-1/seq-1/|title=Works Year for Suffrage in Wis.|date=November 5, 1912|work=Brisbee daily record|access-date=March 16, 2019|issn=2157-3255}}
In 1914, she traveled to North Dakota to give speeches and urge the passage of a state suffrage amendment there.{{Cite news|url=https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn88076086/1914-10-02/ed-1/seq-3/|title=Many Speakers Boost Votes for Women|date=October 2, 1914|work=The Bottineau courant|access-date=March 16, 2019|issn=2576-6872}}
= Teaching career =
In 1913, Grim became an English teacher in Darlington High School in Darlington, Wisconsin, and also purchased a car dealership in Mineral Point, Wisconsin "on the theory that a teacher should know business." She later became the school principal.{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=F7VOAQAAMAAJ&q=Harriet+e.+grim+darlington+wisconsin&pg=PA107|title=Wisconsin Journal of Education|date=1916|publisher=The Association|pages=107|language=en}}
After earning her doctorate in 1938, she became a professor at the University of Wisconsin. She was appointed head of the university's speech department when Prof. Gertrude Johnson retired in 1944. Grim herself retired in 1952.
In 1927, she was appointed to the Wisconsin State Board of Control.{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=rm_XAAAAMAAJ&q=Harriet+e.+grim+darlington+wisconsin&pg=PA207|title=Senate Manual, Wisconsin|last=Senate|first=Wisconsin Legislature|year=1949|pages=207|language=en}}
Personal life
Grim never married. In 1940 and 1950, she was living with Gertrude Johnson in Madison, Wisconsin.1940 United States Federal Census1950 United States Federal Census Grim died in 1967 in a hospital in Oconomowoc, Wisconsin.
References
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Category:Suffragists from Wisconsin
Category:20th-century American women
Category:20th-century American people