Her father, Prof. Nathaniel Ruggles Smith, was a playwright and an authority on Shakespeare, whose interpretations gained the attention of both Edwin Forrest and John Wilkes Booth.

Her father's work on public presenting became the basis for Samuel Kirkham's English Grammar, which proved very influential on Abraham Lincoln.

Harrington was the anonymous author of Emma Bartlett, or Prejudice and Fanaticism, a fictional reply to Uncle Tom’s Cabin, intended to expose the hypocrisy of Know-Nothingism.

Harrington lived in various Iowa cities, including Farmington, Keosauqua, Burlington, Ft. Madison and Keokuk.

[4] In her Letters from a Prairie Cottage, Harrington included a children's corner with tales about taming and raising animals and of a cat who adopted orphan chicks.

We pronounce the plot an excellent one and the style charming, but she has failed to fulfill the intended mission of the book."