Julia Bullard Nelson

Julia Bullard Nelson (1842–1914) was an American temperance and women's rights activist from Red Wing, Minnesota. Following the death of her husband and their only child, she went south to Texas, in 1869, to teach former slaves in U.S. government-backed Freedmen's Bureau schools. Nelson spent the summers of the 1870s and 1880s in Minnesota, where she emerged as a state and national leader in the movement for women's suffrage and the temperance campaign against alcohol use. Julia Bullard moved to Minnesota with her family in 1857. She earned a teaching degree at Hamline University, which was then located in Red Wing, around 1862.

Adult life and career

Family tragedy In September 1866, Bullard married former classmate Ole Nelson. Tragedy struck the Nelson family when their infant son, Cyrus, died in August 1867. Just five months later, Ole died. Newly widowed, the twenty-six-year-old teacher decided to put her teaching skills to use for a greater cause by educating newly-freed slaves in the South.

Nelson also worked as superintendent for the Minnesota WCTU and was its vice president from 1889–1890. The MWSA led the state effort to allow women to vote, a right denied them when the United States was formed. An excellent public speaker, Nelson became one of the group's most sought-after orators. She became a paid lecturer for the National Woman Suffrage Association. Nelson, now a Red Wing resident, served as MWSA president from 1890 to 1896. Nelson left most of her estate to William H. Richards, a Black man, who she had adopted as her son.

Legacy Julie B. Nelson is an important historical figure in Texas and Minnesota history. Her home in Red Wing was added to the National Register of Historic Places, but it was torn down in 2004. Nelson was inducted into the Red Wing Women’s Hall of Fame in 2023.