Mary Ritter Beard (1876-1958) was active in the struggles for women's suffrage and for trade union reform. With her husband Charles Austin Beard she wrote several books, including the multivolume The Rise of American Civilization. On her own she wrote several books about women, the most important of which was Woman as Force in History: A Study of Traditions and Realities.

Mary Ritter Beard was born into a secure, Republican, middleclass world in Indianapolis, Indiana, on August 5, 1876. Her father, Eli Foster Ritter, was an attorney by occupation and a zealous temperance advocate and stalwart of the local Methodist church. Her mother, Narcissa Lockwood, a former school-teacher active in local community and church activities, was primarily caught up in rearing her family of six, of which Beard was the elder daughter. At the age of 16 she attended DePauw University, not far from home, as had her father and as...