Harriet B. Kells

Harriet B. Kells ( Coulson; 1842–1913) was an American educator and temperance activist. She served as President of the Mississippi State Woman's Christian Temperance Union (WCTU) and edited the National WCTU's organ. Kells was also a suffragist affiliated with the Mississippi Equal Rights Association, and a Reconstruction feminist.

Early life and education Harriet (nickname, "Hattie") Barfield Coulson was born in Natchez, Mississippi, on April 19, 1842.

She was educated at the Mississippi Female Institute and the Springfield Seminary. and was for a time principal of the leading girls’ school at Jackson, Mississippi. the official organ of the National WCTU.

Throughout this period, she was working untiringly for the enactment of temperance legislation. In 1902, she appealed to the Mississippi Legislature for the passage of a State Prohibition bill, which was later defeated by only two votes. In preparation for the next Prohibition contest, waged two years later, she conducted numerous campaigns throughout her native State in which she greatly aided the spread of temperance sentiment. She lived to see the enactment of several of her most important bills, although she did not witness the passage of the Eighteenth Amendment, for which she had worked so hard.

Selected works "New Mexico as a Health Resort"