American educator remembered for the innovation and inspiration she brought to her teaching.

Sanford graduated from the New Britain Normal School in 1855 and then taught school in various Connecticut towns for 12 years. In 1867 she moved to Pennsylvania, where in 1869 she was appointed principal of the academy in Unionville. An innovator, she was soon conducting regular meetings of teachers to demonstrate new methods. Later in 1869 she taught English and history at the five-year-old Swarthmore (Pennsylvania) College (Swarthmore College), and she achieved professorial rank the next year. She was an inspiring teacher who believed in using the classroom to inculcate moral and aesthetic values. She began offering public lectures on these topics as well.

Sanford resigned from Swarthmore in 1879, and after a year devoted to public lecturing she joined the staff of the University of Minnesota (Minnesota, University of). The failure of some ill-advised real estate investments in the late 1880s left her heavily in debt, and her determination to make full restitution rather than declare bankruptcy added various extreme economies to her other eccentricities. At times university trustees and state officials expressed displeasure with her methods or her moneymaking sidelines (such as renting art books to students), but students and alumni rallied to her support every time, and she held her position until her retirement in 1909. She continued to travel and lecture, particularly during World War I, when she gave patriotic addresses throughout the country.

In 1958 a statue of Sanford, who was chosen to be one of the two outstanding Minnesotans represented, was placed in Statuary Hall of the U.S. Capitol.