On July 8, 1862 in Wheaton, Illinois, she married professor and geographerAlmon Harris Thompson, a colleague and friend of her brother John. During her marriage, Thompson continued to work as a teacher, and assumed her husband's position as superintendent of schools when he joined the army. She spent her 1863 summer vacation at Cairo, Illinois, caring for sick and wounded soldiers from the American Civil War.[3]
Thompson accompanied her husband on expeditions to map the western United States. During this period, she made friends with members of a number of Native American tribes, learning the language of the "Pah Utes" and studying their customs.[3] Thompson was a founding member of the Women's Anthropological Society of America, Washington DC.[4]
The Thompsons had no children.
Thompson died of heart failure, at home while "engaged in household duties", on March 12, 1911.[5] She is buried in Arlington National Cemetery.
Powell family: Back row, left to right: Ellen Powell Thompson, William Bramwell Powell, William (Billy) P. Powell, Almon Harris Thompson. Front row: John Wesley Powell and Mary Powell Wheeler. Topeka, Kansas, circa 1900.
Thompson joined John Wesley Powell's second Colorado River expedition during their 1872 winter camp near Kanab, Utah, serving as botanist. Her husband Almon Harris Thompson was second in command. She collected plants primarily in the Kanab area, although collecting excursions were also made through southern Utah and northern Arizona.[6] She collected 385 specimens,[7] 15 of which would become type specimens for new taxa.[8]
Thompson is commemorated in the names of the following plant taxa, which were described as new to science based on specimens she collected in 1872 on John Wesley Powell's second Colorado River expedition:[8]
Thompson was active in the Suffragette movement in the 1890s, and was known across the United States as a colleague of Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony. Thompson was elected President of the Women's District Suffrage Association on October 10, 1895,[11] and again in 1897.[12] She was also a founding member of the Equal Suffrage Association of the District of Columbia.[13]
In 1900, Thompson was the chair of the national convention, which ended with a celebration of Susan Anthony's 80th birthday, and retirement from the Presidency of the National Association. Thompson was active in securing a gift of $200 for Anthony.[14]
^"Ellen Powell Thompson". National Park Service, U.S. Department of the Interior. Retrieved June 24, 2022.
^ abHelen H. Tindall, "Ellen Powell Thompson" in The Woman's Journal (Boston, MA, United States), Saturday, April 1, 1911, Vol. XLII, Issue 13, p.99
^ abc"District Representative" in Evening Star (Washington, District of Columbia), February 16, 1898, p 7.
^Ellen Powell Thompson, Folk-lore from Ireland, The Journal of American Folklore, vol 6, no 23, pp 259-268; see also Women's Anthropological Society of America, Washington, D.C. Organization and Historical Sketch of the Women's Anthropological Society of America. Pub. by the Society, 1889.
^The Washington Times, March 13, 1911, p 2; see also The Eureka Herald and Greenwood County Republican, March 30, 1911, p 5.
^Smith, Beatrice Scheer. 1994. The 1872 diary and plant collections of Ellen Powell Thompson. Utah Historical Quarterly 62:104-131.
^Evening Star (Washington, District of Columbia), October 11, 1895, p 16.
^"Multiple News Items." Woman's Tribune, 23 Oct. 1897, p. 82.
^"Equal Suffrage" in Evening Star (Washington, District of Columbia), December 23, 1898, p 9.
^Stanton, E. Cady., Harper, I. Husted., Gage, M. Joslyn., Anthony, Susan B. (18811922). History of woman suffrage. Rochester, N. Y.: Susan B. Anthony. p 568.
