Harriet Elizabeth Freeman (13 March 1847 – 30 December 1930) was an American

botanist Botany, also called , plant biology or phytology, is the science of plant life and a branch of biology. A botanist, plant scientist or phytologist is a scientist who specialises in this field. The term "botany" comes from the Ancient Greek wo ...

, geologist, conservationist, and letter writer. She collaborated with writer and minister Edward Everett Hale. Letters decoded in the early twenty-first century suggest that the two had a romantic relationship that was covered up by Hale's family and biographers.

Biography

Harriet Elizabeth Freeman was born on March 13, 1847, in Boston. Her parents were William Frederick Freeman and Caroline Crosby Lewis. The family moved to

South End, Boston The South End is a neighborhood of Boston, Massachusetts. It is bordered by Back Bay, Chinatown, and Roxbury. It is distinguished from other neighborhoods by its Victorian style houses and the many parks in and around the area. The South En ...

in 1861 and became members of the Second Congregational Church. Freeman worked as treasurer for the church's ladies' charity organization, on the women's committee of the Massachusetts Indian Society, and for the Boston Fatherless and Widow's Society. She studied botany and geology at the Teacher's School of Science (a program run by the Boston Society of Natural History and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology), and was a special student at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (then known as Boston Tech). When women were allowed to join the Appalachian Mountain Club in 1879, Freeman became a member. In the 1880s, Freeman began working as a secretary for writer and Unitarian minister Edward Everett Hale, and the two corresponded regularly until Hale's death in 1909. Freeman was active in campaigns to protect forest lands and the

rights of Native Americans Native American civil rights are the civil rights of Native Americans in the United States. Native Americans are citizens of their respective Native nations as well as the United States, and those nations are characterized under United State ...

, which she detailed in her letters to Hale. In the twenty-first century, historian Sara Day decoded more than 3,000 letters written between Freeman and Hale. The letters reveal the extent to which Freeman assisted Hale in writing his sermons, essays, and books, and reveal that the two had a 25-year romantic relationship, which was subsequently concealed by his family and biographers. Freeman died in Newton, Massachusetts, on December 30, 1930.

References

External links

Harriet E. Freeman Papers at Harvard Library
{{DEFAULTSORT:Freeman, Harriet Elizabeth 1847 births 1930 deaths People from Boston American conservationists American women botanists American women geologists American Unitarians 19th-century American letter writers Women conservationists Women letter writers Scientists from Massachusetts Activists from Massachusetts 19th-century American botanists 19th-century American women scientists 19th-century American geologists