[citation needed] Harbert was a prolific writer, with publications such as The Golden Fleece, Out of Her Sphere, Amore, and The Illinois Chapter in the History of Woman Suffrage.

Harbart's essays and lecturers were on topics such as “Before Suffrage, What?”, “Homes of Representative Women”, “The Domestic Problem”, “Men's Rights”, “Conversation and Conversers”, “The Ideal Home”, “George Eliot”, “Lucretia Mott”, “Statesmanship of Women”, “Aims, Ideals and Methods of Women’s Clubs”, “A Woman’s Dream of Cooperation”, “The Message of the Madonna", “Lyric Poets of Russia”, and “An Hour with the Strong Minded.”[1] Elizabeth Morrison Boynton was born in Crawfordsville, Indiana on April 15, 1843 (or 1845).

[2] Harbert was educated in the women's seminary in Oxford, Ohio and in the Terre Haute Female College, graduating from the latter institution with honors in 1862.

[2] The faculty of Wabash College allowed Harbert and three other young women to attend physics lectures taught by Prof. John Lyle Campbell.

For funding, they advertised the presentation of a comedy, entitled “The Coming Woman”, in which they burlesqued themselves and their unsuccessful efforts to gain admission to Wabash College.

The ladies were styled “the Twenty-three Sorry Sisses”, in an attempt to pun upon the word “Sorosis”, which latter organization was attracting considerable attention in the East.

The adverse criticism attracted an unusually large audience, and with the considerable amount of money which was netted, they purchased the nucleus for a circulating library.

After their marriage, they removed to Des Moines, Iowa, where Harbert published her second book, entitled "Out of Her Sphere", as well as her first song, “Arlington Heights”.

As editor for seven years of the “Woman's Kingdom,” a regular weekly department of the Chicago Inter Ocean, Harbert exerted a widespread influence.

[1] On two occasions, Harbert addressed the Judiciary Committee of the U.S. Senate, making a plea for an amendment to the Federal Constitution prohibiting the disfranchisement of US citizens on account of sex.

[6] Besides the Evanston home, the Harberts had a cottage in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin, which they frequented in the summers when they lived in Illinois.