| Birth Date: | October 2, 1874 |
| Birth Place: | Terre Haute, Indiana |
| Death Date: | October 20, 1967 |
| Occupation: | Author and lecturer |
| Notable Works: | The New Womanhood |
Winnifred Harper Cooley (October 2, 1874 - October 20, 1967) was an American author and lecturer.
Born in Terre Haute, Indiana, she was the daughter of Ida Husted Harper.[1]
Cooley graduated in 1896 with an A.B. in Ethics from Stanford University.[2]
In 1899, she married George Elliot Cooley, a Unitarian minister. The couple lived in Vermont and Michigan before finally settling in New York City. Cooley was widowed in 1926.
Cooley was a prolific writer. Her best known work is The New Womanhood (1904). In The New Womanhood, Cooley lists the achievements of the New Woman as 1- education (lower, higher, professional), 2- employment (industrial, commercial), and 3- recognition (legal and civil).[3]
In "The Younger Suffragists" (1913), Cooley distinguishes herself and the "younger feminists" from the "older suffragists" and their idea that gaining the ballot will change the world for women.[4] Although the term would become widespread in the 1960s and 1970s, only a small group of women called themselves feminists in the early 20th century.[5] [6] Cooley was among this first generation of self-proclaimed feminists. According to Cooley, "A feminist is always a suffragist, but a suffragist is not always a feminist." Cooley saw the suffragists as more conservative than the broader outlooked feminists. For feminists, suffrage was a path to complete social revolution.
Beginning in 1923, Cooley hosted a biweekly dinner forum facetiously called "The Morons" which drew as many as 300 attendees.