When you meet Harriet Bishop in the Minnesota A to Z exhibit, you will get to hear stories of her early teaching days in St. Paul. So look for Harriet in her 1840s dress and be sure to ask her about the "extra students" she sometimes had in her classroom!

Harriet Bishop, St. Paul’s first public school teacher, was born in Vermont in 1817 and arrived in St. Paul in 1847, two years before Minnesota became a territory. She was a graduate of Catherine Beecher’s teacher training course for women in New York, and had responded to a call for a teacher from Minnesota missionary Thomas Williamson. Bishop soon learned that life in her new home could be both dangerous and delightful. Her first schoolhouse was a former blacksmith’s shop, and frequently there were more rats, snakes, and stray chickens in it than students. She grew to love her adopted state, however, and wrote about its many wonders in several books, including Floral Home.

A devout Baptist committed to moral reform, she opened a "Female Seminary" in 1850, helped establish many charitable societies in St. Paul and promoted temperance and woman suffrage throughout her life. She was married in 1858 to John McConkey, from whom she was later divorced. Harriet Bishop died in St. Paul in 1883.