Ethel Harpst

Ethel Elizabeth Harpst (October 27, 1883 – January 12, 1967) was an American educator, caregiver, and founder of the Harpst House in Cedartown, Georgia.

She moved from Boaz, Alabama to Cedartown, Georgia, then a mill village, in 1914 after being appointed to serve in the town's Goodyear Mill Village by the Methodist Women's Home Missionary Society, replacing Bertha Addington. Harpst cared for the sick in Cedartown, which was in the midst of outbreaks of scarlet fever, typhoid fever, influenza, and tuberculosis. which was modeled after Jane Addams's and Ellen Gates Starr's Hull House in Chicago.

Harpst established the Harpst Home in March 1924, which had been purchased, renovated, and given to Harpst by Cedartown city clerk J. C. Walker. Located on Bradford Hill, the home quickly needed to be expanded, and Harpst traveled to raise funds for this purpose. In 1927 James Hall was constructed; at the time this three-story brick building was the tallest in Cedartown. the home expanded over the next twenty years, adding more buildings and acquiring hundreds of acres of land.