Harriet Morel Oxman was born in 1927. She worked as an educator in the New York City school system from 1954 to 1982. She attended the School of Industrial and Labor Relations at Columbia University and the School of Education at New York University. In 1957, she was hired to teach high school at Erasmus Hall High School in Brooklyn. She became assistant principal in 1964 and then principal in 1972, a position she held until 1981. She was the fifth principal of Erasmus, and its only female principal.

The first secondary school to be chartered by New York State, Erasmus Hall Academy was founded as a private school in 1786 by Dutch settlers in the town of Flatbush in Kings County (the present-day borough of Brooklyn). It was named for Dutch scholar and theologian Desiderius Erasmus (1466–1536). The Academy's original building was built on land donated by the Flatbush Dutch Reformed Church in 1787 in the Georgian and Federal styles, and is both still standing and an official New York City landmark. The Academy was deeded to the City of Brooklyn in 1896, after which it became a public high school named Erasmus Hall High School. From 1905 to 1939, four adjoining Gothic buildings were constructed for the school around a central courtyard, and the school's original building underwent restorations in 1936, 1952, and 1987.

In 1994, Erasmus was split internally into three separate schools: Humanities, Science and Mathematics, and Business and Technology. 2004 and 2006 saw the additions of the High School for Service and Learning and the Academy for Hospitality and Tourism. As of 2023, Erasmus is still educating Brooklyn students.