Zilpah Polly Grant

Zilpah Polly Grant (born May 30, 1794, Norfolk, Conn., U.S.—died Dec. 3, 1874, Newburyport, Mass.) was a 19th-century American educator who, through her teaching and administrative efforts, was instrumental in promoting advanced educational opportunities for women. Grant attended local schools and, to the extent her frail health allowed, worked to help her widowed mother keep the family farm. From age 15 she taught in a variety of schools in nearby towns. In 1820 she seized...