Eliza Farnham (November 17, 1815 – December 15, 1864) was a 19th-century American novelist, feminist, abolitionist, and activist for prison reform.

[1] In 1843 she wrote a series of articles for Brother Jonathan refuting John Neal's call for women's suffrage in that same newspaper, though Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony wrote in 1887 that "Mrs. Farnham lived long enough to retrace her ground and accept the highest truth.

Farnham retained the office of matron until 1848 when, amid controversy over her choices and beliefs, she resigned in 1848.

For the two years following, she devoted herself to the study of medicine, and in 1859 organized a society to assist destitute women in finding homes in the west, taking charge in person of several companies of this class of emigrants.

[7] The first volume of History of Woman Suffrage, published in 1881, states, "THESE VOLUMES ARE AFFECTIONATELY INSCRIBED TO THE Memory of Mary Wollstonecraft, Frances Wright, Lucretia Mott, Harriet Martineau, Lydia Maria Child, Margaret Fuller, Sarah and Angelina Grimké, Josephine S. Griffing, Martha C. Wright, Harriot K. Hunt, M.D., Mariana W. Johnson, Alice and Phebe Carey, Ann Preston, M.D., Lydia Mott, Eliza W. Farnham, Lydia F. Fowler, M.D., Paulina Wright Davis, Whose Earnest Lives and Fearless Words, in Demanding Political Rights for Women, have been, in the Preparation of these Pages, a Constant Inspiration TO The Editors".